Planning at Attermire

[graeme]

Amid all the obsession with mapscale and control placement, did anyone else notice how many M21 s finished a course (any course) at this, nominally the most important open event in the North of England this year?

Including foreigners, I counted 12.

Which begs the question...

Why do we bother with M/W21 N and V courses

Someone figured N and V were a way to bring in 21s: nice idea, but with hindsight wrong. We need to think again: its all very well being an elites and old-folks sport now, but if we have no senior recruitment, we'll have no sport in 15 years.

[epocian]

Why do we bother with M/W21 N and V courses
No one on M/W21N and only 1 on M/W21V (and she's a W40)

[awk]

Yes Graeme, I found that disturbing too. I wish I knew the answer. It's no comfort to know that it's affecting many other sports too.

On the map scale front, this is one of mea culpa. The map was surveyed and drawn at 1:15k: the 1:10k is a genuine enlargement. For one or two controls, I asked the mapper to make some tweaks so that the control site could be used. In at least one case he suggested to me that I was "micro-mapping". I didn't think I was (and most of the time still think that) but perhaps in one or two cases I was. Having said that, for 132 all I asked was for the crag to be added!

On the 'bingo' element. As bedders identified, we really did try to avoid bingoism in terms of solely relying on compass and pacing, unless the leg was short enough to allow the site to be hit accurately (even then, there was usually another way of navigating too). On the issue of people popping in and out of depressions: yes it can happen, but we did try to make most depression sites either deep enough so that somebody standing by the control didn't give it away or use the ground shape to reduce people's opportunity to see others coming out (e.g. convex rather than concave slopes). That didn't always work, but we did try to minimise the popping in and out effect. Ironically, the BOF rule that insists on controls of similar features being at least 60m apart perhaps doesn't help: clustering controls could force people to navigate!

This was also part of the controller's and my discussion about numbers through controls. We had more controls than I suspect is the norm (100) because we were trying to keep the numbers down going through them to reduce the issue of controls being given away. However, Derek suggested an alternative, which is that one should use fewer controls, as it's fairer to have a constant stream with everybody led in, than to have fewer with only some people getting led in. One to debate.

I take your point Homer - definitely one to discuss. Really, all I'm saying is that we were aware of the issue, but whether we came up with the best solutions, I don't know. (Of course none of this would have mattered if the mist had arrived - it was ordered!!).

I agree epocian. Fortunately all the controls on their courses were being used by others, otherwise I would have been right p*ssed off. They are all too obviously not a solution. But then to my mind, at a long-distance national event I would have just one course per age class, and all the rest of us running much broader band classes with the distance we want to run the emphasis rather than our age; after all the largest S class had only 18 starters. At the Swiss 6-day last year, I ran Men's A Short, which was effectively the S class for anybody M21-45/50. We were the largest class, and it was brilliant.

[swat]

By coincidence, 12 is also the number of M21s who finished a course at the AIRE Long-O two weeks previously (with significantly more starting!). The difference is that there were only about 150 finishers at the Long-O, compared with over 800 at the National.

[NeilC]

Ironically, the BOF rule that insists on controls of similar features being at least 60m apart perhaps doesn't help: clustering controls could force people to navigate!

The BOF rule just mirrors the IOF rule - just in case this turns into another BOF bashing exercise.

[liamcorner]

Why do we bother with M/W21 N and V courses
No one on M/W21N and only 1 on M/W21V (and she's a W40)

Not quite - I "won" M21V as a fully fledged M35 I'm glad it was available because I'm recovering from a knee op and am currently restricted to walking on anything more interesting than a treadmill. I only chose this course because M35S looked a little long (in my current state) at 8k. I realise I'm not really the intended target audience for these courses, but it was nice to have a shorter alternative, so thanks for including it.

[deebee]

Re Axel's comments about control 43 on Day 2. Having been one of the first to arrive there and having spent nearly ten minutes in the company of a growing number of frustrated competitors, I think I can cast a little light on the problem. There are actually three holes, not the two as mapped, and the control was in the south easternmost one, the one I ran past trying to get to the mapped two. I actually went back after finding it (falling into it), deciding my run had been ruined, and paced on a bearing from control 32 at the end of the crag. To compound the problem all three were surrounded by bracken which I suspect would be well trampled by the time later runners arrived. I really thought we'd moved on from the days of putting controls in holes in the ground in head high bracken.

[awk]

The BOF rule just mirrors the IOF rule - just in case this turns into another BOF bashing exercise.

Just for the record, it wasn't meant to be BOF bashing, nor was the comment meant to be entirely serious. I should get more proficient in the use of emoticons!

[PKJ]

Excellent course (3), with some route choices I didn't notice while I was running. And long enough to feel like a 'real' National Event (even though this gave me an opportunity to show that I'm incapable of going due North for 200m ).

For well over half the course, I was leading people into controls - maybe giving away the control site. But the sites seemed fair enough to me, both at the time and looking at the map afterwards.
Infact, the 'pit' control site that was rejected in a Controller's Conundrum in a recent Compass Sport would probably be OK by me.

And I really can't see the value of the 21 V & N classes. National Events aren't there to attract 20-40 year olds to orienteering - as Steve says, events like the AIRE Long-O would do this rather better - if you need to provide a class for everyone a limited number of Short/B classes can do this.

[Carnage Head]

Thanks to all involved in the weekend!

I too was a little 'caught out' by no.43 on day two. Even after taking a back-bearing from the sheep enclosure to the SE of the control in order to help me get into the control circle, I still had to wait for someone out the handful of searchers to find the pit. But perhaps I should have slowed down, or taken a different approach. Hmm.

For general interest and schadenfreude, my learning points are:
1. Triple-check control codes to avoid mixing controls (it was the first time I've ever mis-punched for this reason) (just wondering, Andy, with no criticism implied, what feature 121 was on at Attermire... I was going for 123).

2. Don't fold the map too small - on day two, I somehow found myself navigating towards no 8 (60) on M21L part-way through my route to no 2 (94) - only realising upon my arrival at 60!

3. Jelly babies are amazing mini energy boosters and they are worth squirreling away in one's pocket!

Incidentally, whilst M/W21V may have a role in Regional and National events (see earlier post by someone recovering from injury), M/W21N should be scrapped, as all we need to do for inexperienced adults is clearly state that colour coded courses would be an ideal (and cheaper) option when they are starting out in the sport. They will then have loads of other competitors (albeit mostly children) to compare themselves to - and this shouldn't really put off many adults.

Finally, what a shame about the 20-40 age group turnout! I think that someone posting in another topic had a good point when they pointed out that, due to busier lives and altered priorities, many 20-40 year olds want to enter challenging events but not to volunteer to help to organise them... There is surely room for such 'casual' orienteers in the sport - they just need to be reached. (Equally, those who do volunteer need to be adequately valued - which, incidentally, AIRE ones are! )

[runnerbean]

I really enjoyed both days and would like to add my thanks to all involved.
On Day 1 I was caught out by both the controls already mentioned: 121 Reentrant and 172 Depression (on course 2). With 121 there was a collecting feature (the line of rocky ground beyond), but there really wasn't much to navigate by for this one. I'd be interested to know what the planner was intending here. With 172, I slowed right down and tried to pick off point features on the way, but still made a hash of it.
On Day 2 my only criticism is that one leg 13-14 (31-42) was an exact duplicate of 4 years ago on the same course. I still managed to make a mess of it though!

[schnitzer]

finished a course (any course) at this, nominally the most important open event in the North of England this year?

Surely the most important open event in the North of England this year was the Whitbarrow Scar NE? Why did that event have so many more (the same number as the sum of M21E and M21L at the British Champs) M21L finishers? Some obvious reasons...

1) World Ranking
2) UK Cup
3) Entries carried over from the cancelled event the year b4
4) Brand new area
5) Lake District reputation
6) (Semi) Forested

I can't speak for everyone but I wasn't really looking forward to the Dales weekend. The main reason being that both days had no woodland sections or to be blunt I expected them to be boring moorland areas. I was still intending to go (I live in Leeds) but forgot to enter. Looking at the map in the start lane on day 2 (EOD) I expected the worst but I was pleasantly surprised with the technical element once I got running. I had mist to contend with tho so that made some of the more vague legs more interesting.

[awk]

just wondering, Andy, with no criticism implied, what feature 121 was on at Attermire... I was going for 123

121 was in the index contour re-entrant 70-75m SSW of 123.

I'd be interested to know what the planner was intending here.

This wasn't one of my courses, although I had a hand in it and planned similar legs. It required precise compass and distance judgement, using the fence just over 200m short of the control, and extending the control feature to include the 2 depressions to the south to give an effective feature some 30m north to south across the line of attack. Any overshoot to the south would get picked up by the steeper slope, and to the north by the rocky pits and rocky ground. At least that's how I tackled it when first test running (in 20m visibility mist!), when I caught the southern depression which led me in.

Surely the most important open event in the North of England this year was the Whitbarrow Scar NE?

Graeme did say "nominally", referring to the title "Northern Championships". I'd agree that for some, particularly the elite, Whitbarrow was probably more important. Frankly, the World Ranking status and UK Cup designation have little meaning for me as an M45. The others you list have nothing to do with importance, plenty to do with attractiveness (but then I don't need woodland to make an event interesting). So, for M21s I'm sure you are right. I'm not so sure about the rest of us - personal priorities will come to the fore (obviously for me Whitbarrow was more important, as I didn't get the chance to compete at Attermire!!).

[graeme]

Surely the most important open event in the North of England this year was the Whitbarrow Scar NE? Why did that event have so many more (the same number as the sum of M21E and M21L at the British Champs) M21L finishers? Some obvious reasons...

Hmm, since Whitbarrow was the only North event I went to I can't really disagree.

and M21L had so many more finishers because...
1/ most of us weren't M21s.
2/ once it looked like a decent race (60 starters), it was worth travelling for.

Its never wise to speak for people half your age, but I do think that being part of a big event is much of the attraction (which is where believing C5s can do recruitment is misguided).

[Roger]

Participation: Attermire is a long way from Oxfordshire, but six of TVOC's finest (and sundry other orienteers, e.g. Messrs Lenton and Harrison) chose to run round Norfolk instead with 842 others... http://www.roundnorfolkrelay.com