Are old men getting too quick?

[Arnold]

The ratios were updated (increased) about 4-5 years ago following some work by David May that had shown that older men were indeed getting relatively quicker. If we think it's changed again you could always suggest another increase in ratio? I'm sure David might even be persuaded to do some statistical work if you ask nicely

We had a separate debate on what "Elite" means for the purpose of a 67 minute winning time. I think the consensus was "top 5 British orienteer" or something like that (as opposed to "Thierry"). Which of course means that a WOC long final will be significantly longer than a BOC long, but I think that's ok.

Having said that in general courses seem to be too short rather than too long (I can't remember an "epic British" for a while). So as I'm planning BOC long I'll have a chance to remedy that and will go for "the top end of guidelines" See you on Nopesport in May 2013 to hear whether you liked it!

[Jethro]

I suppose I am one of the new M55's that this thread is talking about and personally I couldn't care what the winning time is, as long as it is me that is setting that time! For me it is all about the competition, about beating whoever turns up on the day, and not about whether the course has the correct winning time and I have "got my money's worth". I also think that running up just to get more time in the forest is counter productive as when you come to run at a higher level event (British, JK etc) you have lost the edge of having to run competitively. Get your distance out training or in non-SOL coulour-coded events.
I fact I wonder if it is time to move the debate on and consider the structure of the Scottish O League. Rather than having the whole series as "standard" length events, would it not be better to have a whole range of lengths e.g. Long, Standard, Middle, Short/Sprint, even Urban(which I don't like!) with competitors having to have at least one counting score from each category plus two or three more from any category.

[DJM]

The ratios were updated (increased) about 4-5 years ago following some work by David May that had shown that older men were indeed getting relatively quicker.

And the analysis was based not on British runners but on WMOC data instead, thereby reducing any effects due to unequal distribution of world class runners in British age classes.

[graeme]

We had a separate debate on what "Elite" means for the purpose of a 67 minute winning time

Out of interest, who do you mean by "we" in this context?

(re)consider the structure of the Scottish O League

At the moment I feel SOL is pretty successful and there are other SOA competitions more in need of reconsideration. For me, and I believe for many others, "SOL" doesn't just mean a league, it means a quality, classic distance, forest race.

I'm a big fan of other formats, but I feel it's for their supporters to show they can put on events in those formats of SOL-quality and, more important, able to attract SOL-quality fields to age group competition. andypat is doing this with the SOUL.

[andypat]

I fact I wonder if it is time to move the debate on and consider the structure of the Scottish O League. Rather than having the whole series as "standard" length events, would it not be better to have a whole range of lengths e.g. Long, Standard, Middle, Short/Sprint, even Urban(which I don't like!) with competitors having to have at least one counting score from each category plus two or three more from any category.

I thihnk when someone like yourself suggests that then maybe people should listen! What you are describing effectively already exists on the British scene (masters cup/Uk cup) doesnt it? I am not sure if people are too attached to the SOL format to tolerate tinkering (Graeme makes this point above), but would what you are describing be more attractive to me than the SOLS? Definitely! Last year I managed zero SOLs (part choice and part injury related) and 7 masters cup events. I really enjoy the variety in Orienteering now.

[plain lazy]

I fact I wonder if it is time to move the debate on and consider the structure of the Scottish O League. Rather than having the whole series as "standard" length events, would it not be better to have a whole range of lengths e.g. Long, Standard, Middle, Short/Sprint, even Urban(which I don't like!) with competitors having to have at least one counting score from each category plus two or three more from any category.

I've thought that recently too Jethro. It would certainly make the competition much more varied year on year, and from a different point of view think of all the cracking areas we have in Scotland that don't get used for major events because they are too small to cope with a full Regional event. Wouldn't it be great to make use of these for Middle Distance / Sprint races that count towards the Scottish O League?

[Arnold]

"We" in the context of the Elite discussion meant Nopesport about a month ago
I can't remember the thread now but I'm sure it's there somewhere..

[graeme]

Wouldn't it be great to make use of [small areas] for Middle Distance / Sprint races that count towards the Scottish O League?

Yes, it would be great to make use of these for Middle Distance / Sprint races. Which begs the question, why aren't clubs doing it already?
The only merit in changing the SOL would be if the answer to that question were "we're too busy doing SOLs", which I don't really believe (though there are a few other SOA championships formats which are looking past their sell by date).

Rather than taking successful races (classic SOLs) out of the calendar, I'd prefer S&M to follow the urban/SOUL model - start with a few standalone races, let their success raise the profile, launch an independent league and prove it is a format people want to travel to race at.

[Paul Frost]

I don't think we should abandon the SOL format of classic length races.
As Graeme says, another league should be set up to specialise in individual lengths or a Scottish equivalent of the UK or Masters Cups.

The problem is that we don't have that many large events other than SOL's that could be strung together.
It also becomes hard to justify travelling a large distance just to run a sprint course, so these other formats need to be paired up with SOL's to make travelling worthwhile.
However, there have been complaints in the past from people who don't want to run competitively two days running or that if they can't make one weekend they miss two events that count in a league.

With regards the original question, if Jethro is happy, and his view is shared by the others at the top we don't have a problem. I appreciate that the "getting your moneys worth" attitude is more likely to come from those without any hope of winning, but who just enjoy running around forests.

[mharky]

I think substituting the classic SOL for a middle or sprint race would be an absolute tragedy. The SOLs as they are are the staple of the Scottish season. They guarantee quality courses, maps and terrain (whilst terrain cannot be changed, non-SOLs often have debatable planning and dated maps). If we reduce the number (from 7?) then there will be hardly any reliably quality real* orienteering left.

The Scottish Urban League has now been created, and I'm sure it will be highly successful, people like easy orienteering which isn't physically challenging and offers higher ranking points.

Rather than remove classic SOLs, we should be adding other disciplines. It's slightly strange that sprint and middle are WOC disciplines (for how much longer though?) but we don't put them on. How many proper middle races are there in Scotland in a year? A few, and by default normally (6 days, WOC selection races, JK). Is there even an official Scottish Middle champs? Perhaps there should be a Scottish middle distance series (SMS) on Saturdays. [Like CLYDE's Collie Nathis Middle on 17th March, the day before ECKO's SOL]

True sprint races are also hard to come by, outside the default events. Puntering about a urban races seems to be the preference in the UK now. A few clubs do put some good events on. But again, a big city in the west has a sprint day with maps using some hybrid 1990's pre ISSOM specification.

If people want the other disciplines, add them in by all means, but don't be all IOF about it and remove from what is probably the best orienteering league in the UK.

[Paul Frost]

How many proper middle races are there in Scotland in a year? A few, and by default normally (6 days, WOC selection races, JK). Is there even an official Scottish Middle champs? Perhaps there should be a Scottish middle distance series (SMS) on Saturdays. [Like CLYDE's Collie Nathis Middle on 17th March, the day before ECKO's SOL]

A few years ago there was a series of middle distance races held on the Saturday of a SOL weekend, I think it lasted 2 years, and generally wasn't supported by enough people.

There aren't any middle distance races at the 6 Days, unless you are an elite. I understand that there have been repeated attempts by a few to introduce one, but every questionnaire asking for public opinion rejects the suggestion.

I suspect that many/most orienteers don't really understand what a proper middle distance race is. I seem to remember a discussion here once when several people said that they often enter the next class up because the course lengths seemed too short.

[Jethro]

Graeme wrote:
For me, and I believe for many others, "SOL" doesn't just mean a league, it means a quality, classic distance, forest race.

Graeme, if the SOL league is so great why did you run half of the events out of class! You were only getting a true "classic" distance/time by running Black. In M50/Short Brown, 3 of the evnts were won in just over 60 mins, 3 just over 50 mins and one under 50 mins - very competitive but hardly "classic"

Mharky, you described the SOL as

...probably the best orienteering league in the UK

. Why, if it is so good, did very few of the "elite" runners score in more than two events?

Don't get me wrong, I think the SOL is good as it is, but could it be better? I perhaps went too far suggesting that sprint and urban could be included in the league but it wouldn't harm the quality by making a couple of the races longer (true classics) and shortening a couple down to middle. I would imagine there are many like me who don't compete in the middle races that have been on offer as they don't count for anything and if paired up with a SOL could actually have a negative effect on your competitiveness. There certainly isn't room in the calendar for a middle distance league

[Paul Frost]

In M50/Short Brown, 3 of the evnts were won in just over 60 mins, 3 just over 50 mins and one under 50 mins - very competitive but hardly "classic"

Which is one of the reasons why I asked the original question. If the top M50's were frequently winning in 50mins or less, what will be the winning times in M55L be, when many of those top M50's moved up this year?

[mharky]

Why, if it is so good, did very few of the "elite" runners score in more than two events?

Prima donas mate... as Freefall will be able to tell you, a high quality event alone is not enough to entice the elite, as they have very separate agendas to the rest of the average orienteering population.

When the FFC final was up in Oban on Craig Mhic, I seem to recall the winning time on M21L being 80 mins. And Loch Vaa was about 53 mins that same year, perhaps more of a "medium" distance for an elite.

[AAH]

Ratios are never going to be perfect - ideally they would vary from place to place.

A while back I thought about writing a post on the dearly departed Rankings thread that went like this:

The ranking scheme fits a straight line in a plot of time versus points. For every minute you are behind the leader you lose x points, depending on the race. So that means that if you worked out a typical gradient for that line you could express ranking as times in a mythical 'typical' race instead of points. For example, the person with the top score (average 1349.5 points) might be 60 minutes in this typical race and a person with 1000 points might take 120 mins. For every 5.825 points you are behind the leader, you would take an extra minute.

So the ranking list would look like this:

1. 60'00 Craney
2. 62'48 Rocky
3. 62'55 Mharky
4. 64'19 OJ
5. 64'36 Richard
5. 64'36 Spongey
7. 65'24 Kris
8. 65'28 Hector
9. 66'14 Oleg
9. 66'50 Ralph
10.66'50 Coombs

1280. 120'00 Average Orienteer

This might make an interesting display option for the ranking list that is a lot more intuitive.

However, I then had a look into what the correct gradient would be for a 'typical' race. If the top person takes one hour what does the person with 1,000 points take?

You could express this as how many points you would lose per minute if the race times were scaled so that a person with 1349.5 points took 60 minutes. (e.g. For a middle distance race in which 1349.5 points takes 30 minutes, you double all the times etc.)

The answers for some important recent races come out like this.

'Points lost per minute behind leader if 1349.5 points took 60 mins' / Race

2.41 Bigland (WOC Qual Middle)
3.21 JK Tyrella
3.60 SOL Culbin East
4.13 BOC Wharncliffe
4.14 Holme Fell (WOC Qual Long)
4.22 Slieve Croob
5.05 SOL 1 Dalruzion
5.25 Hambldeon
5.80 SOL 2 Dallschyle
6.00 CSC Longshaw
6.11 British Middle
6.39 Robin Hood Trophy
6.78 British Sprints
6.92 Thetford Thrash
7.38 Edinburgh City Race
8.63 London City Race
9.41 JK Sprint

Which pretty much lists the events in reverse difficulty order but more importantly means that you could expect a huge difference in speed ratios between orienteers at two different scores.

So someone with an average score of 100 points (per event) behind the leader would expect to take 1.18 times as long at the JK Sprint but 1.69 times a long at Bigland in the WOC Qualifier middle distance...

This goes to show a few things. It would be pretty hard to come up with a typical race to show ranking as race time. Plotting straight lines through curvy data goes a awry in places. But it's also relevant here in that it shows that course length ratios are also very terrain dependent... The course length ratios to get a given running time for an urban race and for a difficult race in technical and physical terrain have little resemblance to each other.

But one could use a calculation such as this, using numbers from a previous race, to get an idea of the sort of time someone at 1200, 1100, 1000 ranking points etc. is going to take and so customise the course length ratios to an area?

(Calculation: fit a straight line through two ranked runners times/points. Work out what time 1349.5 would have got. Work out ratio to make that 60. Multiply the gradient of that line in points per minute by the same ratio. All figures calculated for longest course. Would have put some more SOLs in but only 3 had ranking points on the black course.)