Street or Urban orienteering?

[graeme]

they seemed to be going round part of the Perth PWT course - which was a Sprint race, not an Urban ...

PWT is a Park Race, predates the IOF codifying of sprints and all that. Winning time is 12-15 mins, but otherwise all they said was "plan a good course and make it spectator friendly". Inter alia, sprints aren't meant to interface with traffic, let alone cross the A989 twice

[Freefall]

I haven't actually heard the interview yet - did they not include the bit about the SOUL (where I used the word Urban)? Hope whatever else I said came over OK.

[The Loofa]

Down here in Sarf London when we say street we mean one of Angry Haggis's OpenO maps - a sort of black spidery thing (and absolutely nothing to do with what young Ralph may be up to)
And when we say Urban, we mean a full ISSOM job.
Street usually means score format, whereas Urban means cross-country (country??? - never mind)
And then there are the Park races - which take place in parks.
I trust everybody has this absolutely clear now.

[andypat]

I haven't actually heard the interview yet - did they not include the bit about the SOUL (where I used the word Urban)? Hope whatever else I said came over OK.

Yes - I listened to the podcast and it was a good advert for the sport. TBH thats the first time I ever heard the term street orienteering - is it a relic from the 70's?

I actually prefer the term Urban Racing over anything else - as Graeme pointed out somewhere else - we should be marketing this more widely that just the orienteering brigade and I think Urban racing is the more marketable term.

[graeme]

Non-forest foot-O anyone?

[andypat]

TBH thats the first time I ever heard the term street orienteering - is it a relic from the 70's?

I mean the term not Freefall - just to be clear

[Mrs H]

I actually prefer the term Urban Racing over anything else - as Graeme pointed out somewhere else - we should be marketing this more widely that just the orienteering brigade and I think Urban racing is the more marketable term.

I agree AP - I've been locally marketing my event as The Great Malvern Urban Race (not that I am bold enough to claim that the race will be great even though I secretly think that it will be - especially as I have had to sleep with the planner to ensure great courses - but because the town is called Great Malvern) as I am inviting the Malvern Hashers, Joggers and Tennis Club to come and have a go!

[awk]

Have to disagree with greywolf: urban is not limited to the longer races. It simply describes the type of terrain, as a contrast to orienteering in the more standard type of terrain - where I've heard the phrases terrain orienteering or forest orienteering used, neither of which is quite apposite, but serve the purpose. Urban incorporates any orienteering on the streets, in parks or wherever urban. Street-O is an older term, but is somwhat limited now as urban orienteering has increasingly extended beyond simple street maps, and lis increasingly being superseded by the latter phrase, although like The Loofa, I've seen it applied to events on those black and whilte spidery map things! Park racing is another older phrase and, like street-O, is now often simply a subset of urban. For instance the York Park Race hasn't been a 'park' race for some time.

Sprint, Middle etc are the various disciplines. So you can have urban sprints or forest sprints or whatever. Just like 'terrain' orienteering, for me the real joy in urban racing nowadays is the variety, as it's not limited to bog standard distances and formats. Just because the NUL doesn't extend beyond them doesn't mean urban is limited to them, as exemplified by other leagues like the Yorkshire Urban League.

[greywolf]

am obviously in a minority here - that'll teach me to take any notice of official defintions "Urban races are normally staged in town and city centres, utilising public open spaces, pedestrianised and trafficked streets and parks. The terrain is similar to that which might be used for Sprint races but the nature of the race is different in that courses will be longer than for a Sprint"

[SJC]

Regardless of the semantics, I would expect a Sprint race to be short and around fast running road, path, grass terrain (certainly not forest); and an Urban race to be on similar fast running terrain but much longer.

[andypat]

am obviously in a minority here - that'll teach me to take any notice of official defintions "Urban races are normally staged in town and city centres, utilising public open spaces, pedestrianised and trafficked streets and parks. The terrain is similar to that which might be used for Sprint races but the nature of the race is different in that courses will be longer than for a Sprint"

In practice I would also suggest that sprint races require a different attitude to traffic than urban. The difference being due to the nature of the planing, which for urban would generally give the competitor more time and flexibility to deal with crossing roads.

From BOF

The Sprint profile is high speed. It tests the athletes’ ability to read and translate the map in complex environments, and to plan and carry out route choices running at high speed.

I would suggest that means avoiding planning sprint courses where traffic volume might have an effect on either outcome or safety.

[Copepod]

I actually prefer the term Urban Racing over anything else - as Graeme pointed out somewhere else - we should be marketing this more widely that just the orienteering brigade and I think Urban racing is the more marketable term.

I agree AP - I've been locally marketing my event as The Great Malvern Urban Race (not that I am bold enough to claim that the race will be great even though I secretly think that it will be - especially as I have had to sleep with the planner to ensure great courses - but because the town is called Great Malvern) as I am inviting the Malvern Hashers, Joggers and Tennis Club to come and have a go!

So, Little Malvern will never have an urban event?!? I'll tell Mum about Great Malvern event, as she's never done an urban orienteering race.

By the way, who'd have thought that collecting Olympic stickers to complete album from Esso garage on Wells Rd, between Malvern Wells and Great Malvern (Texaco these days, I believe?) in 1972, and failed campaign to bring Olympics 1992 to Birmingham could lead to me being involved in 2012 London Olympics!

[Freefall]

Now that I have returned from the IOF Junket in Venice (actually, EventScotland paid from the WOC budget and we spent 30 hours stuck at Schipol) I have listened to the Radio Scotland podcast. They used to say a photograph never lies (till Photoshop came along) but now I'll never believe anything I hear on the radio again.

The interview came about thanks to good work by Mel Nicoll, the JK press officer. She prepared a briefing sheet with bullet points for the BBC including:
• street orienteering (also known as urban orienteering with some events known as “city races”) seems to be growing in popularity
The interview didn't include any running - all the stuff by Mark running along was dubbed on by him afterwards. The interview was conducted in Perth, but in a quiet area near the Dewar's Centre about 1km from where PWT took place. The noise of traffic was also added!
I was interviewed for around 25-30 minutes, and did for example mention the Scottish Orienteering Urban League. I couldn't really control what was edited in or out. Apologies if some felt the term street-O was a bit retro like myself - I did actually mention in the interview that I had competed in the Rat Race using an A-Z and talked about how much better our O-maps were for urban/street/sprint.
Apart from the fact it was freezing, I had just driven 650 miles on WOC2015/Moray 2013 business the previous 2 days, it wasn't too bad (apart from my nervous mannerisms which I don't notice till I hear myself).

[Kitch]

I'm saying nowt

but you can probably guess....

[Kitch]

I couldn't resist this though

Non-forest foot-O anyone?

Non-Arborial Fast Foot - O