Scottish Relays Handicap

[graeme]

This is such a great race, why make it so hard to follow? A relay with 100 teams, all racing head to head on the same (gaffled) C course on the last leg. It's always close but we never get any proper results.

So here's the leading results. The family team from SROC had a big win, then 13 teams in 5 mins.

Hardings 83:37
GRAMP 6 87:33
FVO 14 87:55
INT W 88:32
Aire 2 89:29
Maroc Jaguars 90:03
FVO 9 90:11
SYO Peters 90:18
FVO 5 91:21
Reivers Yin 91:22
BL1 92:05
SYO Bradburys 92:11
ESOC Dotterels 92:15
FVO 6 92:23

Great planning to balance the handicap, great running to produce the race. Pretty please do the commentary and results right next year so we can see what's going on.

[andy]

Great planning to balance the handicap, great running to produce the race. Pretty please do the commentary and results right next year so we can see what's going on.

Were they asked to though?

[mappingmum]

I really enjoyed the relay this year. For the first time ever I experienced running alongside others rather than a sole run. Also the shorter length worked well without diminishing the experience.

[EddieH]

The relay was great, and the format is brilliant for a real relay experience - lots of people running close together on hopefully gaffled courses - (great gaffling this year).

However Graeme, your insistence that the overall handicap winner is the only thing that counts is effectively saying that the 80 or so percent of people that run these courses are only in a mickey mouse competition. Each different handicap set runs a different set of courses from the others. There is no way that a planner can get it (whatever it is) absolutely right. To say that a team that runs 4km more or less than another and beats them by less than a minute (had the Hardings not been there) are Scottish Champions and the rest are nothing is farcical.

I have run in a team that could have won the overall handicap (and would have by a similar margin to the Hardings but for a mispunch) and it was a bit of light hearted fun, but we were focused on beating the others running the same course as us. I strongly believe that you have this one wrong Graeme - I feel sure that the vast majority of runners feel they are first of all competing within their own handicap with people running the SAME courses.

Your view leads to the dissatisfaction felt at Tullochcroisk a few years ago where Moravian actually won a relay (one of the handicaps) for the first time in decades - (in fact I believe we were third handicap team overall). This was so unusual that loads of club members stayed over an hour for the prize giving. The last part of this was to award the overall handicap first across the line team the trophy and that was it. It was not the team so much as the other club members that were thoroughly disgruntled.

I've said it before, but relays give many that never win an individual prize a chance to win something. Why try to enforce a system that means that hardly anyone can win anything?

[EddieH]

Oh and congratulations to MAROC on their prizegiving. A few teacakes and a "buff" for each handicap class winners. It made it feel one had been in a proper competition.

[Big Jon]

Oh and congratulations to MAROC on their prizegiving. A few teacakes and a "buff" for each handicap class winners. It made it feel one had been in a proper competition.

Better thank GRAMP - they were doing the relay day!

[andy]

Oh and congratulations to GRAMP on their prizegiving. A few teacakes and a "buff" for each handicap class winners. It made it feel one had been in a proper competition.

The prizegiving was great this year. I have to agree with Eddie about the classes though, we were 2nd in the 6+ (4th overall) last year and thought we might have got something. Think we would have this year!

[graeme]

We obviously won't agree on this, but I find your negativity depressing. Its especially sad at Braemar where thousands of people come every year to the Braemar Gathering to watch handicap races: people running different distances with the first across the line winning. Of course the Handicapper doesn't always get it absolutely right, but nobody accuses it of being "mickey mouse", any more than other handicap races from the Powderhall Sprint to the Grand National.
I especially dislike your idea of maximising the number of teams who come last. It is quite a common view of people near the front to ignore how depressing it is to be last.

The main advantage of a big relay is that all teams can set themselves targets, its not just the same old people like me and you who aim for first. Of course it would be nice if everyone ran the same course, but British orienteers simply dont have the same mindset as the Scandis wanting to be a part of Tio or Jukola.

I would agree that the gaffling was excellent: I was racing some slightly slower people, got ahead, they cut inside me and I was racing them all over again, and again. Then when I goofed the next to last control, several came past me. That's exactly how a race should be. But I'd like to be able to see who they all were.

[awk]

Once upon a time, the British Relays included a Handicap class - with your handicap based on extra time depending on age and gender - thus a team of 3 x M21s started at scratch, whilst a team of 3 x W65 started much earlier. I ran it several times, as an M20-21, teaming up with a range of people from my then club (SN), including W14s, W45s, M60s etc.

It was one of the best relays I've done with, as Graeme says, much close competition.

And then it was abandoned/subsumed at some stage into the least interesting relay i've ever done, the Mixed Ad Hoc.

[mharky]

The benefit of the handicapping affecting the length of courses you run, rather than the time you start, is that we get a nice big mass start with all adult teams going off on once.

And a slightly narrow start to the run-out must have added to that big-relay experience...

[EddieH]

In case it got lost in my verbiage I truly like the mass start mixed up and handicap format. Brilliant concept (just not the Graeme's desire to ignore handicap class winners.

[size=50]And Graeme I have run in plenty of relay teams where we have scraped the bottom of the results.[/size]

[awk]

The benefit of the handicapping affecting the length of courses you run, rather than the time you start, is that we get a nice big mass start with all adult teams going off on once.

Yes, I think it's also easier to get courses that suit the appropriate ages (so you don't get some classes running relatively a long way, and others having little more than a sprint). But at least there was a relay that mixed and matched ages/genders into one race. Ironic it got dropped as the courses/classes were slimmed down to create more competition.

[CrawfordL]

Oh and congratulations to GRAMP on their prizegiving. A few teacakes and a "buff" for each handicap class winners. It made it feel one had been in a proper competition.

The prizegiving was great this year.

Yes the prizegiving was really good and very slick, but a plea as someone taking photos. Think about the position of the presentation. We had a red commentary van as the background and could have the Cairngorms.

Here are some photos from the weekend. Usual stuff, I'm happy for any to be used but please just acknowledge their use. If anyone should want a higher res image just pm me.

https://picasaweb.google.com/Orienteering.Photo.Gallery

[CrawfordL]

A thought about prizes and who should get them. As one of the 'coordinators' for the JK prizegivings, it's true to say that you can't please anybody all the time or perhaps even anybody any of the time. The beauty of the Scottish relays is they have no rules about what should be given as prizes and the organising club can choose what they do. I'd like to see prizes for 1 2 and 3 for each of the handicap classes and an overall prize for first team back overall. I doubt we can stretch to a trophy for each handicap but it might be good.

I love the format and think getting everyone off in 2 mass starts is brilliant.

[graeme]

the organising club can choose what they do.

Indeed, it's not prescriptive and giving prizes to the fastest on each combination is allowed. But that does tend to be the same old people, and I'd prefer something to spread prizes around to other people who ran well by their own standards. It involves a little more work for the organisers, which is why it wasn't prescribed. Here are some ideas...

1/ Club whose first team has improved most since last year.
2/ First team comprising three novices (however defined).
3/ First team with no individual prizewinners.
4/ Highest placed club who *didn't* win an award last year.
5/ Best performance relative to the team's BOF ranking
6/ Leading small club (however defined).

Notice that these types of award are only realistic in a large field, if you want to wnners to actually have beaten somebody to win (and therefore run well).

One year we also had an individual prize for first back on leg 1, which led to some very aggressive and exciting racing.