Lakes 5

[Sloop]

Hard to believe there's not a single post yet about the Lakes 5 ! Is everybody just too hot and tired to congratulate the organisers and planners on what so far has been extremely varied and entertaining ?

[Davy]

It's hot, very hot. Did I mention the heat ? It's hot.

Mr Whippy hasn't turned up yet.

[Davy]

Mr Whippy came ! Horray !

[DaveK]

Hard to believe there's not a single post yet about the Lakes 5 ! Is everybody just too hot and tired to congratulate the organisers and planners on what so far has been extremely varied and entertaining ?

Seconded unreservedly.

p.s. If I were to have one complaint, it would be the long queue every time I looked at the Ice Cream van.

[yted]

Too glorious last week to spend time on the computer... but it was super orienteering especially the forest days (though some thought the opposite I know - personal preferences of course).... there should have been a stream in every car park field.

[Homer]

Too glorious last week to spend time on the computer... but it was super orienteering especially the forest days (though some thought the opposite I know - personal preferences of course).... there should have been a stream in every car park field.

Totally agree re the 2 forest days. I applaud the brave decision to use Raven Crag.
I won't comment on the other 3 days as I didn't run.

[johnrobinson]

A potentially great series of areas but obviously very physical for the average casual orienteer. Can someone who knows explain if there is a general philosophy for planning multiday events? Is each seen as a separate badge standard event or is consideration given to the cumulative effects? I noticed that this year's M70 course at Helsington Barrows was about 1k longer with more climb than the one i did 12 years ago as an M60 (also for a 5 days). Personally having been injured since Easter and not having done much running i knew i was going to struggle, and boy did i just . Especially with the steep slopes. Raven crag was amazing and would like a rematch preferably as a stand alone event so the legs work better.

[SeanC]

General philosophy. Haven't these multi day events just evolved from the 70's, copying what works from elsewhere?

Personally the attraction of the courses was that, being mainly used to soft southern orienteering, it was much tougher than I'm used to . If I was to recommend a change to all our multi-day events, it would be to provide a score course. That way those returning from injury, relative newbies, those not sure of their ability in these areas, or who don't want a long run, could be limited to an hour of fun. Even B courses and light green can be long for some.

Also could Mr Softee be invited next time as well as Mr Whippy?

A great event. Thanks to all the volunteers.

[Snail]

5 days of great orienteering - what's not to like? (Even when I made a hash of some ...!). The weather clearly helped. I didn't hear of any issues with misplaced controls, although thought some sites / flag placements a bit unfair, being far more visible if someone else was punching than when not.

Personally I don't mind significant variation in courses: I would rather the planners put on the best they can, even if the result is 20% longer or shorter than some target. On my course the winning time varied from around 45 to 70 minutes (with the quickest not even being on the 'middle distance' day!) so not sure that there was much guidance given to planners / controllers. When you want people to enter in advance it would surely help to know which days are going to be short, long, extra long etc. Otherwise at the event you get people wanting to change from L to S courses (or vice versa), or just deciding not to start - which is a shame.

I really like the EOD policy for colour-coded courses, at reasonable prices for both adults and juniors, open start times, and showing the White / Yellow courses in advance. It allows family members to pick and choose which days and courses to enter, depending on things like weather, family start-times, or whether there is a long walk or climb to the start

A few minor things I might have done differently:
- put the 'dress code' (shorts allowed, and/or full body cover required) on the way in to the car park, as well as at the beginning of the walk to the start. With parking up to 400m away, people may be changed and ready to run before seeing the latter, or have missed it entirely when there were alternative routes.
- if you are going to have a compulsory whistle policy (which I am quite comfortable with), don't put the check for it by assembly when the majority of competitors are walking out of the car park by another gate adjacent to the start!
- when pasting results, spread them out a bit more!

[Scott]

I applaud the brave decision to use Raven Crag.

Raven crag was amazing and would like a rematch preferably as a stand alone event so the legs work better.

We're very glad to hear that some people enjoyed it! Reviews (e.g. on Attackpoint) have been fairly mixed, but we always knew that Raven Crag was going to be something of an acquired taste, particularly for a holiday event.

The planning gave us a few sleepless nights. We were constrained by the very limited number of routes from the assembly field into the forest, the need to wiggle between all the areas earmarked for felling, and some of the really nice bits of open wood on the western slope being flattened by Storm Arwen. We tried to at least give everyone a bit of variety and to avoid the courses becoming too 'middle' in flavour.

We certainly didn't get everything right: Routegadget suggests that we overestimated how willing TD4 runners would be to venture off the paths in the plantation, and we should probably have done more to shepherd the older age classes away from the rockiest bits of the eastern slope. Any other constructive feedback would be very welcome.

And if you thought the whole forest was pretty grotty, all I can say is that you should have seen some of the bits that we didn't use (and/or should have been in Estonia)...

[graeme]

And if you thought the whole forest was pretty grotty...

And if you didn't, you should have come to Coast&Islands.

[Homer]

And if you thought the whole forest was pretty grotty...

And if you didn't, you should have come to Coast&Islands.

I agree, some days of Coast&Islands looked amazing. However some didn't. If Chris were to allow more selective entering I may well have been tempted.

[srocmapper]

FYI
Planners were asked to: " Aim for 54 minutes winning time on course 1, assuming this course will be won by a top elite M21. (30 minutes for Grizedale Middle day)." then given a set of factors to scale all courses relative to course 1. The actual winning times for course 1 were 60,50,35,53,65.

[Scott]

To be honest, we had thought that course 1 for Raven Crag was maybe 5% too short, and we therefore scaled all the other TD5 courses relative to a course 1 CLR of 0.95. As it turns out, course 1 was pretty much spot on the target time and the others were accordingly all slightly too long (at least if you go by CLR).

[pete.owens]

FYI
Planners were asked to: " Aim for 54 minutes winning time on course 1, assuming this course will be won by a top elite M21. (30 minutes for Grizedale Middle day)." then given a set of factors to scale all courses relative to course 1. The actual winning times for course 1 were 60,50,35,53,65.

Which for most age classes works out at very close to the course length that would be recommended at a normal UKOL event.
Course 1 is effectively a brown course - run by M35-40 as well as M21.
Courses 2 - 9 correspond cover the same range as short brown to green with most classes running a similar length apart from W65 running 20% further ( green rather than short green).
Course 10 is about short green length, but only for S classes.
Courses 11 and 12 run but the over 70s are significantly shorter than short green and VSG