Running back through the start

[Glucosamine]

discussion from a while ago http://forum.nopesport.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=6752&p=77346&hilit=visiting+start#p77346

Thankyou for the reference - tried looking but must have used wrong search terms - so nothing new under the sun. After 42 years in the sport (sounds like a Douglas Adams reference) it is somehow reassuring to find that new generations of planners and controllers are not always smarter than the old. And that planners can never second guess the perverse competitor. Like when I congratulated the planner at a mountain long-O on the run-or-swim routechoice which I'd swum - only to get the response 'what run-or-swim routechoice' ...

Any other suggestions for unexpected but effective routechoices?

[roadrunner]

The only possible exception may be that later in the course, there could be a (really long) route choice where running through the start is one of the options. It's not ideal, but sometimes hard to avoid if you want a great long route choice and a decent start location on a smallish area. But it shouldn't be too much of a problem as runners will plan ahead, as opposed to turning around on the spot to barge past all the boxes again

I seem to recall doing this at the JK on Penhale Sands some years back - but that had several starts, so it would have been nigh on impossible to avoid such route choices on all courses (and it didn't cause a problem anyway - I was just surprised to come across the start since it wasn't marked on my map!).

[greywolf]

Any other suggestions for unexpected but effective routechoices?

At the Scottish 11-man relay a few years ago the fastest route to the final control was via the download funnel

[Knee Deep Mud!]

On an event (National Event) where there were two starts, I ran through the other start twice during my course (the other start was near the cross over on the figure of eight of my course). Got some funny looks from the start team on the first pass, and some really funny looks from them when I came past again about 25 mins later! At least this was mid course rather than from the start.

Had another event where there was a 50/50 choice forward or back through the pre-start. I went forward, but only after deciding there wasn't much in it. It explained the people with maps I'd passed on the way to the start.

[Duncan]

I was at the Lipica Open in Slovenia this week (great event by the way!), and on Wednesday we had a leg where a plausible and not bad route was through the finish. See #5 - #6 on the map segment currently at the top of the news items here: http://www.lipicaopen.com/.