Purple & Black

[IanD]

There's another group of people who are not adequately catered for by the courses at a typical colour-coded event. These are the experienced but elderly orienteers who want a technical course, but can no longer cope with the length of a Green. They are normally forced onto a Light Green, simpler than they would like, or even an Orange course.

What they need is a shorter version of the Green course, which would need to be physically easy, but still technically difficult. "Grey" strikes me as being an appropriate name. The CompassSport Cup/Trophy now has such a course in its portfolio, is it time for colour-coded events to follow suit?

More work for the planner of course, but probably not too much as often "Grey" would just be the Green with some controls missed out. Extending Red and Brown to produce Purple and Black would typically require more extra planning than a Grey.

[seabird]

IanD said: There's another group of people who are not adequately catered for by the courses at a typical colour-coded event. These are the experienced but elderly orienteers who want a technical course, but can no longer cope with the length of a Green. They are normally forced onto a Light Green]

Surely most C4 areas don't sustain any higher technicality than TD4. A properly planned Light Green should be perfectly adequate for the "grey" contingent, who find Green too long.

[IanD]

Surely most C4 areas don't sustain any higher technicality than TD4. A properly planned Light Green should be perfectly adequate for the "grey" contingent, who find Green too long.

Two comments on that. Firstly if you are lucky enough to have a TD5 area, you will probably use it for C4 events as well as C1/2/3. "Grey" competitors want TD5, it's the physical side they can't cope with.

Secondly, in my neck of the woods, a properly planned Light Green course is a rare beast indeed! Light Green is almost always planned to be technically easier than Green/Blue/Brown, with the consequence that it usually ends up with most legs TD3 at best. OK, maybe the rules should be applied, and Light Green planned to the same technical standard as Green in a TD4 area - certainly no need for a "Grey" then.

I don't think that negates my suggestion that the colour-coded portfolio could be improved by adding a short TD5 "Grey" course. There would be no obligation for any particular event to actually provide it, any more than there is an obligation now to provide Black and Purple.

[Tatty]

I think that it's a common fact that light green is planned technically easier than Green/Blue/Brown, even if it shouldn't be!! Certainly is here in the south.

[Roger]

I think that it's a common fact that light green is planned technically easier than Green/Blue/Brown, even if it shouldn't be!! Certainly is here in the south.

...not if I'm planning or controlling...

[NeilC]

Ian, Tatty - I challenge you to justify your claims that virtually all* light green courses in the south (presumably from Kerno through to Saxons) are planned to the wrong TD. Like Roger I know what planning a LG on TD4 terrain means, I also believe that the likes of Simon E, David May, Tendon, Mr TimE, etc etc do also. But apparently they don't.

* quoting a few examples of bad practice does not constitute proof of the hypothesis.

[IanD]

I challenge you to justify your claims that virtually all* light green courses in the south (presumably from Kerno through to Saxons) are planned to the wrong TD.

* quoting a few examples of bad practice does not constitute proof of the hypothesis.

I can see I'm going to have to back down on this one (although I never said anything about the SW). It's an impression that I had based on the odd comments heard over the years, perhaps never fair in the first place, and very likely out of date now - I know a lot of work has gone into improving planning standards in recent years. I don't in all honesty make a habit of studying Light Green courses, never having run one myself when a more technical course has been available.

I do stand by my comment that a "grey" course would be a useful addition to the colour-coded portfolio, even if it were only offered in TD5 areas.

[SeanC]

Roadrunner said

"I agree with a lot of what SeanC says, but surely he's underestimated the number of helpers required at a C4 event."

Yes I am guilty of thinking local not national, had a quick nose at the BKO website and your C4's look like they get about twice as many competitors as those in Kent so I guess twice as much on the day help is needed.

There could be many reasons for this, but one must be that we are on the orienteering periphery and there are less orienteers in our C4 event catchment area (unless we can persuade more fish to take up orienteering - no bad fish puns please). This makes the professional mapping option more difficult for us, the maps still cost the same but we get less competitors to pay for them. I guess this must be even more of an issue for other peripheral areas such as wales, south west peninsula etc which in addition are more sparsely populated than Kent.

[Adventure Racer]

We already have professional mapping for our C4 events (as there are no club members able and willing to take on the task any more) - we tend to map an area for a C3 event (which can stand the cost) then re-use it for one or more C4s. The main limit to re-using an area more often is the extent to which the map gets out of date, as most of our areas are working forests.

But surely you don't need to have it professionally re-mapped due simply to forestry changes? Most of the fundamentals won't have changed, or don't you even have anybody capable or willing to update existing maps?

[graeme]

There's another group of people who are not adequately catered for by the courses at a typical colour-coded event. These are the experienced but elderly orienteers who want a technical course, but can no longer cope with the length of a Green. They are normally forced onto a Light Green, simpler than they would like, or even an Orange course.

You can tell how right you are by noting that light green competitors at C4s usually do (short) TD5 at C3s. I reckon we should cut the LG altogether, and introduce grey. In practice, of course, this would only affect areas which allow for TD5.

Graeme

[graeme]

There's another group of people who are not adequately catered for by the courses at a typical colour-coded event. These are the experienced but elderly orienteers who want a technical course, but can no longer cope with the length of a Green. They are normally forced onto a Light Green, simpler than they would like, or even an Orange course.

You can tell how right you are by noting that light green competitors at C4s usually do (short) TD5 at C3s. I reckon we should cut the LG altogether, and introduce grey. In practice, of course, this would only affect areas which allow for TD5.

Graeme

[johnloguk]

Graeme wrote;

"I reckon we should cut the LG altogether"


Where will that leave people on the way up who would be left with a big jump from orange to green, surely too big a technical change on TD 5 areas?

Maybe light green and the proposed grey courses should be left to the planner's discretion based on the technical difficulty of the area? I'm sure someone has already suggested that

It is fairly typical of the contrary nature of most orienteers though that they would happily turn up for a summer league offering limited courses, even things called "short", "medium" and "long", and yet moan when C4s offer up to 8 courses

[graeme]

I don't see many people hanging around at the TD4 level. Once competant to relocate from "completely lost", most people seem to want full-on technical (though not full-on physical rocks, brash and bramble). Of course you can put in the extra effort to do both, but given the choice grey would be more popular (and easier for the planner not to hang extra TD4 kites).

[Supersaint]

[quote="seabird]Similarly if we are serious about also providing a full variety of course distances we should be looking at every District Event at the possibility of providing a Black Course. We need something for the Classic inclined runners, whenever the area will allow.[/quote]

I see that AIRE have got a Black course on at Bingley St Ives tomorrow, i'll cerainly be giving that one a go.

[Gross]

That'll be a long course Thought Bingley was in Yorkshire & St Ives in Cornwall????