SLOW Micro-O at Esher

[Simon E]

I've posted some initial thoughts about the Micro-O race at
http://maprunner.org.uk/simon/Eshermicro.htm

From the comments at the end:

I ran the whole section at pretty much normal pace, with no real slowing down to read the map in detail. With only a 30 seconds penalty it didn't seem worth worrying too much. My initial thoughts after getting through this section were that it all felt a bit too unfair. I was only convinced I had one right 16), with two more fairly confident (15 and ) and two unsure (17 and 19). I never really adjusted to the 2.5m contours (and indeed checked the map on the way to 16 to make sure they really were 2.5m and not 5m). I hadn't seen as many dummy flags as I expected, and those I had seen weren't as close to the correct feature as I had expected (other than at 15). I certainly don't see the need to put this in the middle of a normal race. If it is worth doing (and it does have a certain appeal) I'd rather run it as an entirely separate race.

Thanks to David May and SLOW for showing us what it's all about.

[mikey]

It was definitely good fun, but agree that with only a 30 second penalty it wasn't worth hanging round too long deciding which to punch. 4/5 right - punched too high on 18.

Thanks to Slow for a really enjoyable event.

[David May]

I hope to get Micr-O feedback from all those who ran the M/W21L courses at Esher today and have posted an online questionnaire at http://www.wcup2005.org.uk/page.aspx?id=15810 for this purpose.

A copy of the map showing all controls is posted there too.

David

[distracted]

I guess a1-5 on the splits correspond to 201-5 on the map and so on for the rest of the controls? It will be interesting to see the popular places where people chose the wrong control!

It was an interesting technical challenge, something you don't necessarily see in southern areas too often. Only got one of them wrong but I think that was entirely down to direction of approach to the control cluster. and it would have been nice to know that the contour interval was 2.5m in the pre-event details!

[Guest]

This is really interesting, thanks David. Would it be possible for you to put up a table showing which control codes corresponded to the SI print-outs - ie on the splits print-out the controls come up as a3, b2 etc, rather than the numerical codes on your map - I'm still not sure which controls I actually mispuched!

[MarkC]

I thought it was quite fun, but actually fairly easy - at all apart from 17 none of the dummy controls looked plausible, and at 18 I didn't even see a dummy control. I didn't really need to slow down from my normal pace, but then that's not particularly quick to start with... My main problem was that having concentrated hard on the Micr-O bit I then stopped thinking and made a complete hash of the later normal part of the course!

Having seen the all controls map I think that part of the problem was that the men's and women's courses visited different controls in the same cluster, so the dummy controls could not be tailored to be as confusing as possible for both (hence 18, where the dummies were all higher up the hill by the women's control).

I think I'd enjoy doing Micr-O again, but that it would be better suited to being most (if not all) of a short course, rather than 10% of a long course. Add in some more devious dummy controls, and a harsher penalty for being wrong, too, and you'd have a really entertaining novelty event.

Thanks to SLOW for making the effort to try something different!

[Barny of Blandford - WIM]

Thanks for a very enjoyable day - it certainly kept me thinking particularly as the spint o was the last part when what brain there is at my age has long departed
I think the message recently from many sources is that orienteering is about many disciplines be it classic, sprint, trailO, middle, microO - they all teach us different skills
To be an all round orienteer we need to practice all of these disciplines and to say we are only 'classic' or only 'sprint ' is rubbish
The top Europeans seem to manage to be the best at all the disciplines no matter what is thrown at them - perhaps we ought to be trying to do the same and then we might challenge their dominance as a nation
Similarly ought we not to be teaching all our Juniors all of these skills from an early age so that unlike us they are prepared properly for the wider world of international competition.

[David May]

Distracted said: it would have been nice to know that the contour interval was 2.5m in the pre-event details!

The pre race details asked all to look at http://www.sloweb.org.uk/events/20051127/A%20quick%20guide%20to%20Micr.htm for further information, where it clearly states that the Micr-O map had 2.5 m contours.

On a different matter, I've now added the equivalence of 3-digit control codes to letter+number codes to the feedback page.

David

[SLOWGeek]

201 A1
202 A2
203 A3
204 A4
205 A5

206 B1
207 B2
208 B3
209 B4

210 C1
211 C2
212 C3
213 C4

214 D1
215 D2
216 D3
217 D4

218 E1
219 E2
220 E3
221 E4
222 E5


Preliminary results now on http://www.sloweb.org.uk including the correct adjustments. I am still pondering on how to get this into SplitsBrowser!

Hope you had fun.
SLOWGeek

[distracted]

David - my apologies - I had read that but obviously didn't take in the detail...

SLOWgeek - any chance of giving actual split times for the M21L and W21L courses rather than just running times - from what you have said with regard to splitsbrowser it seems like it might be a bit of a problem, I'm guessing because of the numerous Micr-O combinations...

Might cause a bit of controversy here, but should the difficulty of Micr-O controls depend on the route taken between them and hence the direction of approach? I guess this is something that the top orienteers can pick up on quickly, to find the optimum, but in at least one case looking back at the map I still don't think it's obvious - that of 17 (the third cluster) as to approach from the top or beneath. There could also be a case with 19 (the final cluster) as to go straight or round the path and in.

It would be interesting to hear from David as to what he thought the best way to approach each cluster of controls was!

[SLOWGeek]

In case the interpretation of the splits is confusing...

Code: Select all

    16   Simon Errington           7:26       1:27    3:00    4:39    5:53    7:26    0:09                                                               
         HH                                  1(a5)   2(b2)  3(*c2)   4(d1)   5(e4)    *122                                                               

You got 4 out 5. The '*' next to '*c2' means that you punched control 2 in the 'C' cluster but that it was not the correct control. The correct one for M21L was C4 (which was SI code 214). The extra 122 suggests that you punched 122 twice (your time for the MicroO section started with the first punch); probably a case of punching having a look at the map and punching again.

Come on David... let's have some photos.

Regards,
SLOWGeek

PS

I am looking at the splits... a bit of a challenge...

[Simon E]

Breakdown of who punched what on M21L:

Code: Select all

   15a   16b   17c   18d   19e
1  12    7     2     61    0
2  0     83    27    2     16
3  9     1     5     20    1
4  8     1     58    9     65
5  63    0     0     0     10


(e.g at 15, 12 people punched a1, 0 punched a2, 9 punched a3 and so on)

So 16 was "easiest" and 17 was "hardest".

(Controls 16 and 19 revised: thanks SLOWGeek)

[SLOWGeek]

SLOWgeek - any chance of giving actual split times for the M21L and W21L courses rather than just running times

http://www.splitsbrowser.org.uk/splitsg ... entId=1162

Haven't checked if it is absolutely spot on but there is something up for M21L, W21L, MK and MQ.

[Supersaint]

having had a quick look at the micr-o section results, it would appear that the men faired a lot better than the women at getting the right controls. only 2 out of 28 women got every control correct, compared with 24 out of 92 men.

it was good to see that the micr-o section did make a difference to the leader board, as Petr got the fastest time of the day by 19 seconds, but with 1 wrong control lost out by 11 seconds.

Personally i thought it was good to have in the middle of the race. With a change of scale and contour interval you had to suddenly change the way you approached controls, especially as you had to be 100% accurate. I did actually take a bit more time at each control just to make sure that i was getting the right one, but i believe that was the right thing to do as i don't think i wasted more than 30 seconds in total.

I would definitely want to do this kind of thing more often, either during a race, or as a complete micr-o course.

Would have loved to have done the sprint-o at the end like most other courses, but can understand the reasons why we didn't (having 3 maps would be slightly too confusing for some people). Could have done with the extra bit of distance at the end, as there wasn't really anywhere else on the main part of the map that we could have gone.

[Jon X]

it was good to see that the micr-o section did make a difference to the leader board, as Petr got the fastest time of the day by 19 seconds, but with 1 wrong control lost out by 11 seconds.

Well you would say that wouldn't you

Although actually I do agree.

I thought it was good too and the controls all seemed fair. It was interesting to compare the special micr-o map at 1:5,000 with how that area looked on the 1:10,000, I understand why they made a special map!

30 seconds seemed about right as a time penalty given how close together the controls were - there was time to make sure and go to the right control. With a smaller penalty (or a bigger distance between controls) then if you did go to the wrong control it would be better just to punch it and continue even if you knew it was incorrect.