Oxford City Race

[sgb]

Provisional start times are available on the OUOC City Race website. There are still a few maps available for late entrants: see the OUOC website for details.

SGB

[sgb]

Provisional results.

[Tatty]

A great day, super atmosphere, lovely setting. Well done to OUOC keeping on with the idea and finally achieving it at their third attempt. It was well worth waiting for!! Good idea to have the marshalls in their bright orange T shirts. However they didn't give away the controls as they were a small distance away. Great!! Only had a few strange looks from the general public, mainly when I overshot a control and went back passed everyone when I corrected myself. Best quote must be from the competitor who paused at the beginning of a narrow passage. Suddenly a voice came over a nearby entry intercom " its down here, turn right at the end and it's on your left!!" Is that unsolicited assistance?? Many thanks OUOC. When will you do it again?

[mikey]

Fully agree. Thanks for a brilliant event.

[Stodgetta]

Please, please, please do it again - really wanted to go, but hubby-organised MTBO and a 4 year olds birthday party at Wacky Warehouse conspired against me

[bedders]

Yes please do it again, I even had a start time but my illness prevented me from coming down

[IanD]

Great event, really enjoyed it. A little different from what I'm used to, but good practise for Venice next week!

I particularly appreciated the planner taking the trouble to break control circles and lines where they might obscure important detail. Next time, it would be worth trying to position the control numbers over the olive OOB rather than the grey buildings, it would make them a lot more visible.

By and large I managed the long legs OK, it was the short ones into really detailed control sites that gave me trouble. It took me a while to find 151 tucked into a hedge corner, and then I did little more than a jog for the next three short legs, the longest of which still only took 38 seconds.

The one thing that I don't think worked was the approach to 119 from the east. This required one to find something mapped as a covered passageway which was actually a stairway. To give us a reasonable chance of finding it, the map needed to show the stairs as well as the covering. I understand there is no standard symbol to cover this. My solution would be to invent one, if thin black lines on the tarmac colour indicate a stairway in the open, then thin black lines on the grey covered passageway colour would be easy to interpret as a covered stairway. If this is not possible then it means the area can't be mapped properly and shouldn't be used. The attempt to guide people using tapes simply didn't work, succeeding only in making the correct entrance look even more like somewhere we shouldn't go. I and others ended up taking what must have been an unmapped route through the building, presumably going somewhere we shouldn't have, and possibly annoying people. I hope there are no adverse consequences.

Thanks to the students and the colleges for a super event, please do it again!

[Gnitworp]

This harks back to a previous thread a bit I'm afraid, but I think there are just 2 effective ways of preventing or providing sanctions against people going out of bounds.

1) Intensive marshalling at all critical points and race numbers for all runners (well done today OUOC )

2) Planning the courses so that it is never quicker to go out of bounds

Anitcipating possible retorts; please take the above as an observation rather than insistence that either of these should always be done.

[IanD]

This harks back to a previous thread a bit I'm afraid, but I think there are just 2 effective ways of preventing or providing sanctions against people going out of bounds.

If that's a comment on my post, then I would add that the map needs to be clear so that people can distinguish in-bounds and out-of-bounds. I went back to look at the passageway which gave me trouble after my race, and if I hadn't already spoken to the planner, who told me that it was a stairway, I still wouldn't have found it!

[Gnitworp]

No it wasn't, Ian.
I was typing mine before I saw yours!

[Barny of Blandford]

I have uploaded some photos from the event today here.

Thanks to OUOC (past and present) for a great event.

[Simon E]

Brilliant event, and perfect practice for Venice next week for those lucky enough to be going.

There'll be a longer video available soon, but here's a taster. Sorry to Graeme and Tim but the clips are too good to miss.

Oxford City Race Video Trailer

[roadrunner]

I agree with the others - a great event, thanks OUOC. Let's have a few more of these, please.

What amazed me was how un-fazed the people of Oxford were at all these lunatics rushing round like headless chickens (well, in my case, anyway)!

[HOCOLITE]

Great Video Simon and some great photos Barney. Superb picture of Mr H. He'll be thrilled.

[Tatty]

For those who are unsure of the technique of using Emit, study Oli on Simon's video. A quick touch of the control, followed by immediately, but on the run, checking the scrolling bars. Allan will be proud of him!! Great stuff.