Southern Champs 2018

[Homer]

I'm looking forward to this. There's a good article on the BO website previewing the event:

https://www.britishorienteering.org.uk/ ... &item=4444

With the construction of the Hindhead tunnel, what used to be a decent area should now be an excellent one. I can't believe it's already been 7 years since the tunnel was completed!

A brand new Dave Peel map as well. What's not to like? I'm looking forward to some interesting route choice problems. Thanks to Steve McKinley and SN for making it happen.

[MacMan]

Final details now posted...really thankful I'm not elite any more ....oxygen please !

[Scott]

Despite being slightly intimidated by the climb, I'm really looking forward to it, especially as it's such a rare treat to get a 1:15 map!

Thanks to Steve McKinley and SN for making it happen.

...and also to SLOW, who are providing half the area, the planner, and numerous other volunteers. A real joint effort!

[Homer]

...and also to SLOW, who are providing half the area, the planner, and numerous other volunteers. A real joint effort!

Sorry, I didn't realise it was a joint effort. Thanks also to SLOW.

Despite being slightly intimidated by the climb, I'm really looking forward to it, especially as it's such a rare treat to get a 1:15 map!

If I were the Planner I think I might have been tempted to find another 30m of climb somewhere for the Elite course just to make it a nice round number.

...and some people think the South of England in flat.

[MacMan]

...and also to SLOW, who are providing half the area, the planner, and numerous other volunteers. A real joint effort!

My goodness yes, this is really calling upon a huge effort by both SLOW and SN runners ..I think our planner has 100+ control sites which is needing lots of help to get put out in time for the event in a very public place. ... Buts hats off to the two controllers who are checking ... Even the madness of the assistant controller who had a "practice go" at checking the controls yesterday

[MacMan]

Start lists have now been pushed to the web site https://www.southernnavigators.com/images/start-by-course-no-stars.pdf

[MacMan]

Results, Photos and Routegadget for all today's championship courses https://www.southernnavigators.com/events/hindhead-and-devils-punchbowl-southern-champs-2018-11-25

[Homer]

Thanks to everyone involved with making the event happen. It was a very enjoyable day out. Much appreciated.

[SJC]

Really enjoyed the event and still can't work out the best route for some of the legs.

[Simon E]

How can it be this quiet? That was a fantastic event, and one of my highlights of the year. Yes it was hilly, yes it was long. But the courses were challenging with good route choices and you definitely felt you had achieved something when you finished. The map was great once you got into Dave's broad-brush approach to vegetation. The sports hall had a great atmosphere after you had finished.

Maybe some people feel it was a little overlong or overphysical? Maybe it wasn't an ideal area for the shorter technical courses, especially given the start and finish were so far south and away from the more interesting forest?

Make sure you read what the Organiser, Planner and Controller have to say about the event. It's almost a forgotten art to write stuff up like this, especially Paul's detailed analysis of what he was trying to do.

It's fantastic to see over 100 routes in Routegadget. You can learn a lot by looking at some of the choices people made. It also shows how well-balanced some of the route choice legs were. Look at how even the split is between people going north and south of the big out of bounds area into the south east corner. It's also worth opening the configuration options (the cog icon in the top right corner) and then ticking the "Show GPS speed colours" and dimming the map intensity down to around 40%. Select any GPS route and you'll immediately see the huge speed variations across the area. This showed me that two of my slowest sections were downhill where it was too steep to run.

So finally thanks to everyone involved for what was a memorable event.

[Homer]

It is quiet. I'll keep banging on though, hoping that at least some of the organising team are reading.

I ran Course 3. I've uploaded my route. Interestingly no one seems to have gone round the top (along the old A3) on the long leg across the punchbowl. I was expecting a route choice where this would be an option and therefore did assess it as a route. I discounted it on the basis that the controls each end of the leg were too low down the hill to save sufficient climb in order to make the extra distance worthwhile. If it had been a 50/50 decision I would still have gone straight for touristic reasons

Many thanks to Planner Paul for a very enjoyable course. Those old results certainly make great reading. A list of who's who in early 70's orienteering. It would be interesting to re-run the same course (as once happened with the first British Champs) to see how quick modern orienteers are compared with those in the early days....

[NeilC]

It was indeed a great weekend, my priority was always the night champs and I tried to tell myself that I'd just enjoy Sunday's run and not try and race too hard. That never seems to work though. The long leg on course 4 (almost identical to that on course 3) was truely excellent. The small loop just beforehand required either fast running or detailed navigation and didn't lend itself to planning ahead. As a result I stopped for 10-20 seconds at the start of long leg to assess options. As Homer noted the climb back out put me off the round route. Even half way through the leg I hadn't decided whether to go straight at the end or round the paths to west. In the end I took the latter (safer) option with the intention of contouring in at the end. Unfortunately this bit of white forest was an example of what the final details had described as being on the slower side of white. As a result we (I was running with a club mate at this time) ended up having to drop down quite a way from the path into the control. An easy attack though.
Aside from the long leg we had a few legs early on where it wasn't immediately obvious to me which route to take. That's what we all hope to see on a course.

[Gnitworp]

A list of who's who in early 70's orienteering. It would be interesting to re-run the same course (as once happened with the first British Champs) to see how quick modern orienteers are compared with those in the early days....

I'm still disgruntled 45 years later to be one of the 3 people to mispunch
control 2. The control was in a gully (now a pit on Dave Peel's map on the crest of the spur by the tree). I think the 'mispunched' marker was also on the crest of the spur 100m away in the next pit down on Dave's map (shown as a gully on the old map). There was no path up the spur in 1973. It's interesting to notice that there are rather more small earth features marked on the old map but a lot less vegetation detail.

[afterthought]

Thankyou for your kind comments.

121 routes on Routegadget now, which is great to see. Thanks to Simon E for the reminder about how to show speed for the GPS tracks. And I've enjoyed relaxing by playing back some close races. Even if a runner has not loaded their route they still join in the replay.

I'm not sure the courses were enjoyed so much by some of the younger seniors, and especially many of the juniors, at least judging by the times. As I said in my comments I aimed to closely follow the guidelines; on what long distance tests, on length and on technical difficulty, so I can't explain it well. I guess I did a bit too much.

When entries closed I did a comparison of entries in 2018 and runners in 2017. In 2017 the Southern Champs and Army Inter-Corps were together at the November Classic. I don't think anyone expected the same numbers and an overall two-thirds was OK. You may not be surprised that the reduction was not even across the classes. On the longer courses numbers held up, but they came down significantly on the shorter courses. It was 171 -> 61 across the two short technical courses 11 and 12. Car parking and climb must be factors?

I appreciate your comments on the long leg in the Punch Bowl and the thinking. Several people were happy to chat about that after their runs too.

Amongst the surprises to me is that for the Boundless Copse leg 227-228 the path route left was taken by several of the top course 4 runners but nobody on courses 1,2 or 3 (apart from the possibly unluckily disqualified Capt Ed Dickins.) An assessment of how rough the forest was maybe?

[drobin]

It's interesting to notice that there are rather more small earth features marked on the old map .

According to the legend, some of them are 'Digging with spoil heap'. They obviously found what they were looking for as the one just south of control 9 on course 3 has now become a platform.