Course lengths

[Red Adder]

Why do clubs persist in announcing course lengths as a spuriously accurate 5.420 km when the BOF guidelines clearly state that lengths should be rounded to, and displayed as, one decimal place [i.e. 5.4 km] ?

And why should the course length be measured on the straight line (excepting going round impassable features such as lakes and high fences) but the height gain calculated on the "sensible route" ? To me this is illogical - surely the same same route (either straight or sensible) should be used be the basis of both measures ?

I'd favour straight for both as what was sensible for me as a gazelle like M21 (slight exageration there) is certainly not true for a fat and underfit M50.

[AndyO]

Simple answer from my point of view - Condes gives the distance when you plan the course, and adds the length (optional) to control descriptions. Climb - you have to do the long way

[RS]

Slightly off topic and mentioned in the past - Why can't planners stick to BOF guidelines when putting classes together? The last event this happened in that I went to was on Cannock Chase last March. Best eveny for a long time

[Red Adder]

I thought it was the Controller's job to see that the planner stuck to guidelines (though NOT to actually plan the legs). I've certainly worked with 2 or 3 controllers in EAOA who have been pretty strick on this - and certainly the overall quality the courses (colour coded) has benefitted from this.

[awk]

And why should the course length be measured on the straight line (excepting going round impassable features such as lakes and high fences) but the height gain calculated on the "sensible route" ? To me this is illogical - surely the same same route (either straight or sensible) should be used be the basis of both measures ?I'd favour straight for both as what was sensible for me as a gazelle like M21 (slight exageration there) is certainly not true for a fat and underfit M50.

Appendix B states that the height climb is only to be adjusted from the straight line height gain to ensure that climb that is not going to be run by any competitor (underfit M50 or gazelle-like M21) is excluded, and that a reasonable indication of the height climb that could be undertaken is shown. Pure straight line climb would be a misleading nonsense on many areas.

[NeilC]

Why do clubs persist in announcing course lengths as a spuriously accurate 5.420 km when the BOF guidelines clearly state that lengths should be rounded to, and displayed as, one decimal place [i.e. 5.4 km] ?

Many of the course planning programs (well at least OCAD) quote lengths to this number of decimal places. For BOC I manually adjusted the course descriptions but this takes time, and once you start manually adjusting things you can run into trouble. For my next event I probably won't bother and if anyone complains I shall be pleased that they haven't got anything more important to moan about.

The measuring height and distance debate has gone on for years and years. A balance has to be found that is straightforward but gives a reasonable indication of the course parameters.

[PorkyFatBoy]

More importantly, why aren't course lengths done by a "reasonable route", so that you don't end up with monsterous times courses? Some areas you can run direct or with slight deviation, but others become a fast path hack and running 66% further is just not on.

Last week, I ran a 9km Brown course, only to realise that I actually ran just over 14km when I measured the distance afterwards! We always thought that the slow times at Hockham was because of the technical navigation around the "pingo" ponds, but having a clean run in that part of the course made me realise that there must be another reason for the longer times.

[NeilC]

More importantly, why aren't course lengths done by a "reasonable route", so that you don't end up with monsterous times courses?

For all sorts of perfectly good reasons. Courses should be planned to take a certain time not be a certain length.

[Neil M35]

On an area of average runnability I would expect a brown course distance to be fairly predictable given the height climb – climb of 300m+, less than 7k, 150m about 8k, minimal climb 10k+. Variations from these tell you that the area is not average runnability – overdistance and the terrain is fast and you are likely to be going in a straight line a lot of the time, underdistance and the terrain is slow and you will run much further to find faster routes.

If you measure courses by expected route rather than straight line distance then you won’t see this variation and will actually have less information about the nature of the course.

[mharky]

Why do clubs persist in announcing course lengths as a spuriously accurate 5.420 km when the BOF guidelines clearly state that lengths should be rounded to, and displayed as, one decimal place [i.e. 5.4 km] ?

does it matter??? in what was is that a problem???

[bendover]

mharky, it might be that in those extra 20 metres an orienteer gets cramp, or needs a wee. be serious. we're dealing with peoples lives here.

[Kitch]

Last week, I ran a 9km Brown course, only to realise that I actually ran just over 14km when I measured the distance afterwards! .

Was that 14km by design or...how can I put this ...errrr, circumstance ?

running 155% of the course distance is going some.
running the full arc of a semi-circle to cover a leg (a lonnng way round) is only fractionally more at 157%

[Meat Market]

Why do clubs persist in announcing course lengths as a spuriously accurate 5.420 km when the BOF guidelines clearly state that lengths should be rounded to, and displayed as, one decimal place [i.e. 5.4 km] ?

does it matter??? in what was is that a problem???

I care! Its up there with my pet hates of:

why does everyone eat at wilfs when they are the evil corporate giants of the british orienteering world and their lentils are in fact manufactured by underpaid pygmies in sub saharan africa?

Why don't they have separate entry fees for those who do and do not use porta loos? That way those of us who go in the forest and continue the flow of nutrients into the soil can be rewarded.

why do we insist on using the term si cards when in fact 'D.I.B.B.E.R' is clearly more accurate since it is a form of gardening implement.

and so on and so forth...[/list]

[mharky]

Last week, I ran a 9km Brown course, only to realise that I actually ran just over 14km when I measured the distance afterwards!

...how much of that 14km did you mean to run???

[mharky]

a think a bigger problem is how many of our regional events are failing to make the 67 minute winning time for a top national runner...