Colour Coded Course Lengths

[Sunlit Forres]

Curious to see how my boss had got on at Craig a' Barns today I had a look at the results http://www.computing.dundee.ac.uk/staff/dsloan/tayside_orienteers/craigabarns100313/index.html

At last year's JK the M40S (equivalent to Blue) was 4.9K. Today's Blue was 6.6 k. A similar comparison with a green-equivalent course at the JK gives 3.8 K Vs 4.8 K.

I bet it was great fun for the hard cases, but I would appeal to planners, even for Level D events such as this, to keep course lengths within guidelines, or at least call them something different if they're not.

[SeanC]

or at least call them something different if they're not

Rather than a colour coded system that mixes technical and physical difficulty (and generate confusion all round) we could have a system where the colour is just the technical difficulty and we show the physical difficulty by the expected time of an average (say 1000 ranking point/event) competitor. Assuming we give TD4 the colour green, and TD5 the colour black, a "Kent blue" would be:

Green 60 mins

and a "tough scottish" blue would be

Black 90 mins

This would have a few advantages:
- It would force the planner to think about expected times.
- The success of the time estimation would be immediately measurable (for the courses that are ranked at least)
- It would encourage clubs to move away from just doing the range of courses that they've always done and think about what might attract new participants.
- We wouldn't need all this super short green/light green/green type nonsense.
- Inexperienced orienteers venturing onto TD5 areas for the first time would know to expect a greater technical challenge rather than finding out the hard way.
- It might encourage those stuck in the TD4 southern comfort zone to seek out events with TD5 areas (as they would be easily searchable on the BOF system)
- I'm about average, so this would suit me nicely.

[Red Adder]

I strongly agree with SeanC that courses should be advertised on the basis of their TD -
we could have the "development" courses of white-yellow-orange and those aimed at experienced competitors green-blue, I would then advocate they be then classified by length/height gain. Then as an addendum put on the expected winners time with the general caveat that an average orienteer could be expected to take up to 50% longer, and one experienced at the TD quite possibly in the range 50-100 % longer.

So you macho 10.3 / 240m Black would now be Blue 10.3/240 with an EWT of 88 mins and so your average O'er might take 2.25 hr and a relative novice may be around 3hrs.

I might review the TD classes and have a 4th development class (red ?) and look to have 3 high TD classes - where the technical difficulty of the area is also factored in so that say you could only have a black on a TD5 area (sorry SE England).

[graeme]

I bet it was great fun for the hard cases,

It appears to have been won by a veteran woman.

SeanC's proposal makes immense good sense, but only once we've got away from the age-group obsession which means any 1000pt person or novice M21 is tut-tutted out of short green (65mins for the only W35 or 85 for the only W50 might look OK for a blue). We've tried to get this through the committee structure before, but the "required" mapping to ages killed it.

[frog]

You have to allow for the fact that JK courses are planned by experienced planners where as local courses are planned by more novice planners. I'd rather have a wide range of people planning our local events and risk time guidelines being a bit out than reduce the number of people willing to plan and organise events.
We tend to use the colours blue and green fairly loosely at our local events and they really refer to short and long TD hard as we can make it for the area courses.

[andypat]

but I would appeal to planners, even for Level D events such as this, to keep course lengths within guidelines, or at least call them something different if they're not.

We tend to use the colours blue and green fairly loosely at our local events and they really refer to short and long TD hard as we can make it for the area courses.

Is it just me or is there an obvious answer...

[EddieH]

I think SeanC makes a lot of sense.

In any case the current system is largely broken as whilst this event does appear to be a tad long the vast majority of level C events are a great deal too short. You only have to compare SOLs with standard level C events - short browns are so much longer than almost all browns which makes a bit of a nonsense of the reason for the extra colours. The position is then made even more ludicrous when at middle distance events the same colours are used for radically shorter courses.

For those in the know I suspect that the only thing we look at is distance combined with knowlede or some concept of what the terrain is like.

Wat I really like about SeanC's idea is that it encourages planners to plan distances appropriate for the terrain rather than trying to force repetitive long courses, or indeed to turn courses round just before they reach the best bits.

Mind you just as distance rules are largely ignored today I can see that with colours representing only TD, clubs will quickly start claiming their terrain is TD5.

[graeme]

JK courses are planned by experienced planners where as local courses are planned by more novice planners.

Having spent yesterday looking at the excellent courses from an experienced planner at Tulliallan, I wonder whether we have the controlling system back to front. Of course novice planners won't get distances spot on, but surely the time for saying "er, that's going to take a looong time" or "That's a Brown course" is before rather than after the event?

It wasn't hard for me to tell that 6.6km of Craig a' Barns would be way overlong for blue, therefore the planning probably wasn't up to correct standards, and decide not to go. That's not a great outcome for TAY. Or indeed for me, since it appears that the course I missed was a fine example of "long, TD hard as we can make it".

It's not rocket science to see the same will apply to the Trossachs next week - very long average times. Enjoy

[Sunlit Forres]

It appears to have been won by a veteran woman

who, being a hard case, doubtless had a whale of a time.

local courses are planned by more novice planners. I'd rather have a wide range of people planning our local event

I'm not sure I'd want my club to be letting a novice planner loose on Craig a' Barns without a controller. I presume there wasn't a controller on Sunday with it being a level D, but maybe someone experienced within the club could have given the planner some length guidelines based on previous race times.

[SeanC]

Well, I'm surprised that everyone agrees with me I was expecting people to say "the colour coded system has worked well for 40 years" etc etc....

One thing though on the "development courses" (white, yellow, orange, light green)... I think it's even more important to break from the restrictive colour coded guidelines.

Why are these the optimum combinations? I guess at some point in the past these were designed as stepped progression for juniors. Leaving aside how unsuitable they are for adults who want less technical orienteering, if the guidelines simply said "design something suitable for juniors" we might get lots of different courses that inspire our juniors in many different ways and in ways suitable for 2013 instead of 1973. Are white courses optimum for younger juniors? I'm not so sure. They are quite boring (because they follow big paths), and these days parents are reluctant to let pre-teen children run around woods on their own for fear of stranger danger/fear that children will get lost lost / cant or wont keep up when shadowing.

Freed from the tyranny of the colour coded system, the imaginative organiser could just organise something appropriate... maybe find a small safe runnable corner of their wood, maybe 400 m X 400 m, tape off the boundaries, recruit some coach types to run the show and give children a true mini-orienteering adventure that will keep them busy for more than 13 minutes. Plus they can hang out with their own age group instead of getting felled by competitive adults on the run in

[pete.owens]

In the past they were designed as a stepped progression for juniors - and since the essential nature of orienteering and technical skills are still the same they still serve as such. It is well understood and really important that we all stick with those standards so that juniors progressing through the system can turn up at any event in the country and be able to choose a course that is appropriate for their level of skill - and that planners have a set of guidelines that enables them to set courses that test those skills.

Now I'm sure that you are capable of coming up with your own imaginative system for introducing juniors to orienteering - you may even think your system is better and you may have very good reason for introducing different skills in different orders and you could even design a different naming system perhaps named after species of tree or whatever. The trouble is if someone rolls up from a different club they won't have the foggiest idea which course is appropriate for them as their club names their course after species of deer.

The same goes for technical courses. It really doesn't matter what naming system we use so long as we all use the same system. OK, if you typically score 978 ranking points then a numerical system based on how long a runner with 978 points should take makes more sense to you personally than one based on a ratio of an elite winning time - but to every other competitor in the field it is just an arbitary number, rather than an arbitary colour.

As far as the planner is concerned they would still be providing the same range of courses to meet the anticipated demand. Applying standards is not tyranny - you don't have to provide any particular courses on the spectrum - but what you should do is name them correctly so folk know what they are letting themselves in for.

[NeilC]

Assuming we give TD4 the colour green, and TD5 the colour black

Given that the proposal plans to ditch the colour coded system are you happy with existing definitions of TD? To some extent they are subjective, those that run regularly on highly contoured terrain have learnt how to master it but then struggle to cope with having to rely on subtle vegetation changes that those that run in flat featureless forests are used to. Is it really fair to say that running across an open fell with good visibility and obvious relief (but no paths) is significantly more difficult than navigating through a thick wood with indistinct features but plenty of paths?

[Arnold]

I'm always amazed when planners get winning times substantially wrong. 90% of our areas are used so regularly that you have all the historical info you need to get it right, and in the South East I can usually spot it very quickly if a course is too long or too short.

Maybe we should form a "council of wise men (and women)" to whom all course lengths must be submitted for sense checking before they are allowed proceed?

[Sunlit Forres]

I'm wondering if the planner at Craig a' Barns was an American...... http://www.chicago-orienteering.org/selectcourse.htm

[Clive Coles]

I guess there is a tendency. where there is not really much scope to plan a full set of courses in accordance with the TD guidelines, for planners to increase course lengths in order to give folk better value for money.

But, that can lead to some long times for improving novices and for those more experienced orienteers who might struggle with winter vegetation and weather.

Damned if you do, damned if you don't.