Urban Course Lengths

[PKJ]

In the YHOA superleague there are 'standard' age classes but you can score points on any course, running up or running down. But I don't think that's always how it's presented.
Overall I agree that we should emphasise 'run the course you want', with league and age-class stuff secondary.

[King Penguin]

The 2 national leagues - UKOL & UKUL (and the regional urban leagues)- both expect you to run your designated age-class course.
You can always run up (longer) and you will still score points, but as if in the age-class in which you run. Your points will not be combined across age classes. For club points / rankings in UKOL you will be seen as if 2 separate people and therefore if frequently alternating between classes neither of you is likely to count for your club.
You can also run down, but in that case you will not score any league points.

[SeanC]

UKOL - maybe that's the thing. It's a national league - clearly aimed at experienced competitive orienteers at a select few big events. And the events are primarily described as separate events eg the 'Brambleworthy National Event' not the UKOL league event 1 etc. A small number of events too.

The urban league - the pressure to run a longer distance is not so damaging at urban since the less experienced orienteer is not that likely to have multiple 20 minute control attempts as is quite likely for a forest event, and also the urban events are primarily marketed as separate competitions, say 'Winchester Urban', rather than UKUL 7 etc.

The problem I believe are these regional leagues such as South East League and Yorkshire Superleague (and others, these are just the two leagues I go to). The age based courses seem to be much more prominent and the inadvertent messaging is 'this is what you run if you want to do the sport and be a proper/successful orienteer'. Regional events are of course the next step from local events and a comment I've seen on here a few times is 'how do we get more people who go to locals to go to regionals'. Of course again there are multiple factors - but this is an easy one to fix.

Actually the South East League is primarily a club based competition, so I can see ranking points working quite well for that league. At the moment there is a complicated formula based on target times for results on courses designated by age class (with a rarely known rule that lesser points are available for running down). The biggest factor is turnout. I can see that an individual competition where people run different courses and compare ranking points might not seem fair. Personally I find my points to be pretty similar whatever course I run though.

[Scott]

The 2 national leagues - UKOL & UKUL (and the regional urban leagues)- both expect you to run your designated age-class course.
You can always run up (longer) and you will still score points, but as if in the age-class in which you run.

For UKOL, this is not correct - if you run up you are just completely disregarded for scoring purposes. I'm not sure it's a great rule, but I think it's there to avoid the complexity of working out which class somebody is running up into (e.g. is the M50 running Brown running up as a M35 or an M40)?

[Scott]

The urban league - the pressure to run a longer distance is not so damaging at urban since the less experienced orienteer is not that likely to have multiple 20 minute control attempts as is quite likely for a forest event

Although I agree with the rest of what you say, I would query this bit. For the recreational M21 runner used to 5km parkruns, the suggestion that you should attempt a 12km urban race is no small ask, even if you disregard the navigational element.

I know many urban races now do now allow people to enter courses other than the 'designated' course for their age class, although the consequence is that you then appear in a results list headed something like 'Open Course 5' with about three other people.

[Homer]

For UKOL, this is not correct - if you run up you are just completely disregarded for scoring purposes. I'm not sure it's a great rule, but I think it's there to avoid the complexity of working out which class somebody is running up into (e.g. is the M50 running Brown running up as a M35 or an M40)?

I can confirm that this is the case. I got no UKOL points running Elite last year. This was a little disappointing but more than made up for by the bonus ranking points

[Snail]

.. ,although the consequence is that you then appear in a results list headed something like 'Open Course 5' with about three other people.

And if you are unlucky you may be the only one!

It is really disappointing when events present results like this. The solution is surely to present results primarily by course. If necessary with a supplementary column showing position within class (whether age, urban League or whatever).

Not sure if the problem is with the available systems / software themselves, or if organisers don't make the best use of those systems.

[awk]

To raise this issue again, and go right back to the OP. I ran in the Nottingham City race yesterday. Whilst a quite reasonable course - even if I was disappointed that we stayed in the relatively uninteresting city centre and missed all the university - I was not chuffed to be provided with a course with a winning time (without the strongest runners) of barely 26 mins. Foolishly, I ran to age class, but I would still normally expect a run of at least 40 mins. I love sprint/middle, but this was definitely a 'long' urban, with a decidedly 'long' style of planning. Chatting to the planner afterwards, it was definitely planned using the guidelines and, on getting home to check, conformed exactly. But 26 mins is a nonsense (23 or less if John or Keith had been there I suspect).
How does one get in touch with the rulemakers? In the meantime, looks like will need to start cherry picking races more carefully, and ignoring UKUL if want a decent run (not that, TBH, have been 'doing' it this year).

[Scott]

How does one get in touch with the rulemakers?

Instructions on the 'rule change process' and the form to fill out to request a change are on the rules page of the British Orienteering website: https://www.britishorienteering.org.uk/rules

[SJC]

The winning time on the Men's Open course is 40 minutes, by someone who isn't even in the top 100 on the ranking list. This suggests that this course was far too short, with the knock-on effect when calculating all the other course lengths.

[iainwp]

Another situation where the rules are not helpful. 11.5.3 says you can do what want. 11.6 suggests that 10km is max length for an M21, which at 4mins/km is 40minutes winning time.

All we need is the rules to give a winning time for a black course and then everything can be calculated from there.

[rf_fozzy]

Another situation where the rules are not helpful. 11.5.3 says you can do what want. 11.6 suggests that 10km is max length for an M21, which at 4mins/km is 40minutes winning time.

All we need is the rules to give a winning time for a black course and then everything can be calculated from there.

This is what I aimed for at Little London/Leeds University this year. And at Whinmoor last year.

For the Black Courses I planned 8.8km/200m for Little London and 9.4km/100m at Whinmoor. The winning times were 48 and 54mins respectively.

https://www.aire.org.uk/results-archive ... Leeds.html
https://www.aire.org.uk/results-archive ... dexw3.html

However, the BOF ratios which I stuck to within 10% at Whinmoor gave me winning times for the other courses as follows:
Brown 50mins; Blue 52mins which were all ok and consistent, but then Green was 35mins and Short Green was 30mins.

For Leeds Uni, I ended up with Blue being about 15% longer than the ratio (Brown was OK) once climb was taken into account and Green was 30% longer than ratio.

Winning times for the shorter courses were still too short:
Black 48; Brown 45; Blue 42; Green 33; S Green 26

I suspect the ratios for EWTs in terrain are too aggressive for Urban courses where the PD is "easy"

Btw, both of these events were back-to-back A3 1:4000 maps, so getting longer than ~10km for the black without map exchanges is tricky. I might have just squeaked out 12km for both of these events, but I'm not sure it would have added a lot.

[awk]

At least for Green, the reason you got a longer winning time at Whinmoor than at Leeds North, was the quality of competition - you had better runners at the latter. Whilst the winning times were 35/33 respectively, I took 36/40 respectively; Paul Bradbury, who won Whinmoor in that 35, took 41 at Leeds (we're pretty nip and tuck when it comes to urbans!). Actually, I thought Leeds was pretty much on the nail - cracking course and good distance. You provided just over 6k of running, and I would expect about that - and it's what we do get at most races. However, at Nottingham we got 4.9 (same distance as the MHVs got at Leeds), not least because the guidelines suggest 3-5. So the planner was at the tope end of the scale! Heaven help us if a planner decided to go to the shorter end of the range!
Basically, I'm not suggesting we need/want long courses -that's what running up is for - but I do think if we are doing our age class 'long' we should get something more than what is effectively a short middle-distance race (and at 3km, we are even into sprint distance country). To me the guidelines are blindingly obviously wrong, not even marginally so.

Thanks for that info Scott - I'll pursue.

[pete.owens]

All we need is the rules to give a winning time for a black course and then everything can be calculated from there.

^^^ This.

Since the planning guidelines do not specify lengths of urban courses - then anyone critical courses being too long or too short or the wrong EWT has no basis on which to complain - just individual personal preference.

It also seems absurd to specify course lengths as precise fractions of an undefined length.

Just as with a traditional O event in a small forest you might not actually offer a black course - but that should not have any bearing on the specifications of other courses.

[roadrunner]

.. ,although the consequence is that you then appear in a results list headed something like 'Open Course 5' with about three other people.

And if you are unlucky you may be the only one!

It is really disappointing when events present results like this. The solution is surely to present results primarily by course. If necessary with a supplementary column showing position within class (whether age, urban League or whatever).

Not sure if the problem is with the available systems / software themselves, or if organisers don't make the best use of those systems.

Most of the ones I've seen recently publish a list by class and a list by course, which should cover all bases.