Easiest race of the year: JK sprint

[graeme]

...
9.41 JK Sprint
Which pretty much lists the events in reverse difficulty order

Many will be surprised to see the widely-praised JK sprint labelled as the easiest event of the year, much easier even than BOC sprint or Urban races. But I can't fault your analysis. So why was nobody making mistakes? Is that a bad thing? Specifically, is it better to plan a course that people think is difficult to run optimally, or one which actually is?

[andy]

So why was nobody making mistakes? Is that a bad thing?

Becuase there were very few traps. You chose your route and ran it but generally, unless you did something stupid, you ended up in the vicinity of the control. It came down to running speed and route choice (which is what top level elite racing, certainly in sprint, is all about) rather than avoiding getting lost. This kind of race brings the competition much closer.
It's not a bad thing at all, the usual suspects were still at the top of the list.

The real question is... how easy is the JK sprint this year going to be

[graeme]

That's what I'm trying to figure out. I didn't seem to get much thanks for making the Scottish Relays deceptively difficult - I guess people don't actually like it when they make big errors. A housing estate isn't ever going to be that hard, but even if I can force mistakes on almost everyone, is that the point?

[andy]

I didn't seem to get much thanks for making the Scottish Relays deceptively difficult

Scottish relays weren't that difficult, the thing that made me not enjoy it so much was the horribly slow forest after the storm the week before!

A housing estate isn't ever going to be that hard, but even if I can force mistakes on almost everyone, is that the point?

Uh oh, JK sprint planner talking about forcing mistakes on people! The speed people (try to) go at will determine mistakes. As long as you make it difficult enough so choices have to be made then people will make mistakes.

[King Penguin]

I for one made rather too many mistakes at the 2011 sprints than I should have.
i suspect legs going faster than brain because I perceived it to be "fairly easy". The greater the difficulty, the more I slow down and brain can keep up.

[greywolf]

It's not making mistakes per se that's the issue, it's how costly those mistakes are that matters (and spreads the field out).
In simple terrain (as found in most sprint / urban races) relocation is usually straightforward for everyone and mistakes aren't very costly.
At the other end of the spectrum in the most complex terrain where relocation is extremely difficult, (e.g. last years WOC), even the world elite can make catastrophic mistakes and completely fail to relocate.
"Complex-terrain-by-UK standards" areas like Culbin fall somewhere in the middle: the evidence from various recent events is that the very best find it fairly straightforward, and where they make mistakes they relocate quickly and only lose 30secs - 1 min ... the further down the field (and course list) you go the more confused everyone gets and 10 - 20 min mistakes become commonplace.

Of course the expectation of how costly mistakes will be gets factored into running speed and tactics - the best slow down less than the rest of us!

[Arnold]

Interesting question that, what makes for a "good course" from an output point of view.
So not just the design of it (changes of direction, leg length, fairness etc) but what actually happened in the forest.

I'd definitely say as a planner one of my "success" criteria is whether competitors lost time, in particular the top guys. If they all come through clean, then I haven't done my job properly.

Another one is producing different route choices on as many controls as possible. Which is linked to the previous point - the more possible route choices, the more chances to lose time by choosing the wrong route.

It would also be nice for competitors to "like" my courses but I think the first two criteria are almost more important - and anyway most competitors prefer harder courses to easier ones.

[EddieH]

Interesting this. When I planned a SOL at Rogie I had some long legs crossing the least technical parts of the forest. Looking at time loss by far the largest number of AND largest time losses happened on these long legs. The really complex shorter legs were far less inflential on the results.

[Gnitworp]

Other things being equal, and by this I mean sustained complexity of navigation/density of micro-decision-making, the longer the leg, the better the leg. Every leg I set is the longest I can without loss of these qualities, which may result in some very short legs indeed! Other things being equal (see above), the longer the leg, the more is the scope for error. I always set the longest leg I can without it compromising the technical difficulty of itself, the previous leg or the subsequent leg, which again inevitably results in some very short (sometimes technically easy) legs to set up some very good longer technically difficult legs.
Remember, factors such as easily identifiable catching features in the far distance will reduce the technical difficulty of a leg, and a shorter leg may be called for in the interests of sustained technical challenge, which must be the aim of every planner.

[Big Jon]

Gnitworp:
"a shorter leg may be called for in the interests of sustained technical challenge, which must be the aim of every planner."

I beg to differ here - the aim of every planner should be to offer a variety of technical challenge - so an easier leg in the middle of a technically hard course may encourage more errors by runners not adapting to the different challenge (look back to Eddie's example of Rogie). A challenging fores tthat is very consistent is not as hard as a forest, or course, where the level of technical challenge is constantly varying. Thus some courses in places like Culbin or Docharn & Deishar are straight forward - the runner merely has to get into the appropriate mind-set and the technical challenge is the same leg after leg.
"Change" should be the buzz word for planners - change of direction, change of leg length, change of forest type, change of visibility, change of technical challenge, change of angle (uphill, downhill, contouring). These are the best way to challenge the technical and mental abilities of a competitor.