At local events there is inevitably a limit to the number of courses that can be offered. The trend from clubs in this part of the world (and I suspect others) is to offer:
Yellow (<2k) - Orange (2-3k) - Green (4-5k) - Blue* (~6k)
(*Blue might not be offered on a weeknight.)
The reality of terrain used for small local events means most planners can't really offer TD5. I believe that is a common "problem" for most clubs.
Now put yourself in the shoes of slightly cautious regular Orange runner who wants to progress. You know that the next step is Light Green. You know that Green is TD5 - a big leap from your mostly running on paths you do just now. In reality you probably can progress easily to a lot of the green courses offered locally because they are not really TD5! However unless your club has a coaching structure to guide you through that leap is a big ask for either a 14 yr old or a 50 yr old who's recently arrived in the sport. In reality its a Light green course (especially if we keep the distance to the bottom end of the range) so why not call it that?
"Its worked fine for years" and "that's what other clubs do too, so everyone expects it" are probably good arguments for the established orienteer - I'm not sure they help us build the sport for newbies.
There is another issue with misleading people that these are really "green" courses. Those people then turn up at a regional/national event with real TD5, full of the confidence of having run a dozen local greens and suddenly are out of their depth. Is there a good reason not to offer:
Yellow (<2k) - Orange (2-3k) - Light Green (~4k) - Blue (~6k)
Those who would have run green can either run light green or Blue, but we have clear technical progression, with only the fittest and best navigators running Blue.
If your club isn't doing this how do you guide people from TD3 - TD4 without scaring them off and make sure that they know what a "real" Green will be like? Do any clubs routinely offer more than 4 courses at level D events with 60-100 people?
Should we call Light Green.... Light Green
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Re: Should we call Light Green.... Light Green
We offer score courses at our 'typical 4 colour coded' local events, and at all regionals too.
Getting inexperienced people (especially adults) to try and find a few TD4 or TD5 controls in a score course is not a problem and for many the definition of fun. Asking them to find 15 in a row then shaming them in the results with "disqualified" or asking them to endure a 3 hour epic are the problems.
I think score courses can be a hard concept to sell though, and many like the challenge aspect of taking on a colour standard.
Speaking as a parent whos recently guided someone from TD2 to TD5 what I really want is to see the course in advance to check whether it is too hard or too easy as there are such massive differences in technical difficulty within one colour, and very difficult/impossible to standardise with guidelines. The next best thing and easily achievable for 95% of events is for clubs to post a link to a previous map in the event details, and ideally routegadget showing old colour courses in the same area. This also has the advantage of making it fairer, since everyone can study the map before the event instead of those lucky/unlucky enough to have competed in the area before.
Getting inexperienced people (especially adults) to try and find a few TD4 or TD5 controls in a score course is not a problem and for many the definition of fun. Asking them to find 15 in a row then shaming them in the results with "disqualified" or asking them to endure a 3 hour epic are the problems.
I think score courses can be a hard concept to sell though, and many like the challenge aspect of taking on a colour standard.
Speaking as a parent whos recently guided someone from TD2 to TD5 what I really want is to see the course in advance to check whether it is too hard or too easy as there are such massive differences in technical difficulty within one colour, and very difficult/impossible to standardise with guidelines. The next best thing and easily achievable for 95% of events is for clubs to post a link to a previous map in the event details, and ideally routegadget showing old colour courses in the same area. This also has the advantage of making it fairer, since everyone can study the map before the event instead of those lucky/unlucky enough to have competed in the area before.
- SeanC
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Re: Should we call Light Green.... Light Green
We offer score courses at our 'typical 4 colour coded' local events, and at all regionals too.
I personally like a good* score but my children have never enjoyed it so I'm not sure its the ideal easy progression path either.I think score courses can be a hard concept to sell though, and many like the challenge aspect of taking on a colour standard.
* I have a suspicion that your approach actually leads to bad score courses which reinforces people's dislike of score. I suspect as score is uncommon here we would just see the all controls map being thrown out with no regard for: do the score runners coming from random directions ruin a control/leg for those on Blue/Green, is a clean sweep possible on the score in the time limit (it shouldn't be), is Score too easy in some cases because the Blue course crisis crosses a small area multiple times and the score runner can use a more logical order, are there too many yellow/orange controls on nice path junctions that mean you can rack up points just from running at random? A good score course takes at least as much, possibly more, thought than a colour coded course.
with pre-entries by the time you can see the course its often too late.Speaking as a parent whos recently guided someone from TD2 to TD5 what I really want is to see the course in advance to check whether it is too hard or too easy
I completely agree, and level D events with no controllers (and possibly less experienced planners) are particularly likely to be unpredictable.as there are such massive differences in technical difficulty within one colour, and very difficult/impossible to standardise with guidelines.
not sure that is as useful as you suggest - in my experience, there's definitely a degree of planner variability rather than just area variability and often our better planners like to mix it up if reusing well tested areas.The next best thing and easily achievable for 95% of events is for clubs to post a link to a previous map in the event details, and ideally routegadget showing old colour courses in the same area.
- Atomic
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Re: Should we call Light Green.... Light Green
Why would you not plan a Light Green course? It probably could be done entirely from controls used on the Blue and Green courses.
This isn't just for youngsters working up through the skills it also serves those at the other end of their orienteering career for whom a green course is too far. Given the age profile of orienteers that is a fair number of people you are not catering for. OK they would probably prefer a Short Green to a Light Green, but given the sort of terrain you are talking about that simply isn't on offer.
As for what to call it - I thought that the idea was to repurpose Red when it was replaced by Long Orange.
This isn't just for youngsters working up through the skills it also serves those at the other end of their orienteering career for whom a green course is too far. Given the age profile of orienteers that is a fair number of people you are not catering for. OK they would probably prefer a Short Green to a Light Green, but given the sort of terrain you are talking about that simply isn't on offer.
As for what to call it - I thought that the idea was to repurpose Red when it was replaced by Long Orange.
- pete.owens
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Re: Should we call Light Green.... Light Green
pete.owens wrote:OK they would probably prefer a Short Green to a Light Green
I've never understood why some events put on both courses in terrains which don't support TD5, as they are almost 100% interchangeable (both 3.0 km to 4.0 km and both the same TD in such terrain).
Combining Short Green and Light Green into one course
(a) makes planning (and checking) courses easier and, for ranking events,
(b) increases the number of those contributing to the rankings calculation and so reduces the chance of a "small numbers" course not being ranked.
- DJM
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Re: Should we call Light Green.... Light Green
DJM wrote:pete.owens wrote:OK they would probably prefer a Short Green to a Light Green
I've never understood why some events put on both courses in terrains which don't support TD5, as they are almost 100% interchangeable (both 3.0 km to 4.0 km and both the same TD in such terrain).
Combining Short Green and Light Green into one course
(a) makes planning (and checking) courses easier and, for ranking events,
(b) increases the number of those contributing to the rankings calculation and so reduces the chance of a "small numbers" course not being ranked.
But there are no ranking points for Light Green, so it would have be classed as Short Green TD5 to get them which seems counter to what you're suggesting above.
- sborrill
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Re: Should we call Light Green.... Light Green
We are putting on Short Greens generally for our M/W70+ who are not as nimble when it comes to climbing over vegetation, clambering up slopes or into large depressions. In contrast a typical Light Green competitor (eg M/W14) may rather enjoy such things. Thus although TD may be the same - physical difficulty should not be.
- NeilC
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Re: Should we call Light Green.... Light Green
sborrill wrote:
But there are no ranking points for Light Green, so it would have be classed as Short Green TD5 to get them which seems counter to what you're suggesting above.
No restriction on having ranking points on light Green or easier courses, it's just that they rarely have enough adult competitors. The Light Green at Pwll Ddu did reach the threshold number for example. As mentioned combining light green with Short green would increase the chances of ranking points on this course.
I think the difference between light Green and short green on TD4 or easier areas (unofficially) comes down to physical difficulty and planning style. One is being planned with 14 years olds in mind and the other for much older competitors.
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Re: Should we call Light Green.... Light Green
Another recent thread discussed the idea that the UK offers a wide range of areas with varying technical difficulty many only able to offer TD4 and some offering technical challenges harder than typical TD5. One suggestion for a colour coded scheme to cope with the variety would be to use colours to denote the physical difficulty and use 'light' and 'dark' to indicate technical difficulty. This would seem to answer some of the issues raised in this thread.
Normally you'd put on a Light Green and Green to suit varied technical abilities, but on a TD4 area put on a Light Green, Light Blue etc, and on a more technically demanding (TD6!) area you might put on Dark Green, Dark Blue, and maybe a Light Green if possible.
Normally you'd put on a Light Green and Green to suit varied technical abilities, but on a TD4 area put on a Light Green, Light Blue etc, and on a more technically demanding (TD6!) area you might put on Dark Green, Dark Blue, and maybe a Light Green if possible.
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Re: Should we call Light Green.... Light Green
Atomic wrote: I have a suspicion that your approach actually leads to bad score courses which reinforces people's dislike of score
When we started doing this, the expectation was that it would indeed be what you call 'bad' score courses, just an all controls map, to reduce volunteer time, but this bad would (hopefully) at least not be as bad as a too challenging light green or too easy orange.
But orienteers being the dedicated people that they are, are not good at cutting corners and planners have generally tried to plan 'good' score courses, selecting a mixture of the available controls to give a nice mixture of easy and harder controls. Also because they are geared at newbies some organisers removed the time penalty, so newbies didn't lose hard won points by misjudging the finish times.
For my own offspring, score was a short lived but vital stage between orange and light green when light green risked a dispiriting series of long times and possible drift away from the sport. Also when he was very young, score courses gave an opportunity to get off path, with a 15 minute penalty for not getting out of a ditch
I personally would like to see score courses take the role of 'red/long orange' courses for adult newcomers, but actually give them a colour and set the standard appropriate to adult newcomers - ie a mixture of easy path and harder off path TD4 type controls. And avoiding time penalties. This covers the massive range of ability for adult newbies. By giving it a colour, score courses would get an improved status and part of the progression, leaving the white/yellow/orange courses for the younger children, saving the adult newbie from the humiliation of doing the 'kids' courses. A score course with some genuine off path controls shows that orienteering is more than a trail run if that's what people want.
Investigating how best to use score courses at mainstream events is the kind of project that we could really use BO to do, but, sigh, 'improving the colour coded course option' is never going to pull in development funding like another outside mainstream O project like 'Xplorer/Find Your Way/Club Nights' etc ...
- SeanC
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Re: Should we call Light Green.... Light Green
I think the difference between light Green and short green on TD4 or easier areas (unofficially) comes down to physical difficulty and planning style. One is being planned with 14 years olds in mind and the other for much older competitors.
I'm not convinced that local events ARE (consistently) planned with the age of competitors in mind whether on light green, short green or green! In most country park type terrain if you would not be happy taking a 75+ yr old there your should probably be pausing for thought about taking a 12 year old there (in reality some M/W14's will be 12 on the day of the event).
- Atomic
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Re: Should we call Light Green.... Light Green
buzz wrote:One suggestion for a colour coded scheme to cope with the variety would be to use colours to denote the physical difficulty and use 'light' and 'dark' to indicate technical difficulty. This would seem to answer some of the issues raised in this thread.
Sounds like another way to overcomplicate orienteering.
What the sport needs to do is precisely the opposite - it needs to simplify.
- rf_fozzy
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Re: Should we call Light Green.... Light Green
So, what about overtly stating the technical difficulty of the planned course?
For me, it still worth doing the Brown course, even if the navigation isn't really TD5. I'm fit enough to run it, and if the area can't honestly support TD5, then so be it. But a fit newish orienteer might try one of the longer courses if they realise the navigation isn't that hard?
For me, it still worth doing the Brown course, even if the navigation isn't really TD5. I'm fit enough to run it, and if the area can't honestly support TD5, then so be it. But a fit newish orienteer might try one of the longer courses if they realise the navigation isn't that hard?
- Excelman
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Re: Should we call Light Green.... Light Green
Most of England doesn't get anywhere above real TD3 no matter how you describe it... so why not just have long, med, and short
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Re: Should we call Light Green.... Light Green
rf_fozzy wrote:buzz wrote:One suggestion for a colour coded scheme to cope with the variety would be to use colours to denote the physical difficulty and use 'light' and 'dark' to indicate technical difficulty. This would seem to answer some of the issues raised in this thread.
Sounds like another way to overcomplicate orienteering.
What the sport needs to do is precisely the opposite - it needs to simplify.
Orienteering offers a physical and a technical challenge. What's so complicated about having a scheme which describes both? Just because there are a more possible combinations doesn't make it more 'complicated'.
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