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Controller’s Report - "Best Course
this year" Quotes
overheard at the Finish: "What a great event", "Best
course this year", "I really enjoyed that", "B...
Brilliant" "Pity about the rain" Such comments make all the hard work seem worthwhile. So, once again,
SN has staged a successful event and on behalf of all of the competitors, I
wish to thank them for their time and efforts. It has been a pleasure to work
with the club over the last months. Rushmoor
Arena provides a good setting for our sport and makes life easier for the
organisation. Having said that Paul Wallace-Stock, his team leaders and their
helpers always had everything well organised and under control. In my
opinion, they all worked very hard in adverse conditions to ensure that all
competitors could enjoy their day. I trust that you appreciated having the
car park, the start, the finish and all facilities close together. With the
rain pouring down, I am sure that many of you were grateful, so thank you
Paul In my opinion, the star of the event must be Steve McKinley and I
believe that he must be a strong candidate for any Planner of the Year Award.
In addition he was also much involved in mapping, in map production, in the
entry software and in setting up the computers on the day. Steve's courses received acclaim from virtually every finisher. His
report gives a fascinating indication of his process in designing the courses
for you. In the run up to the event, I was aware that every control site was
visited at least 4 times and by at least 2 different people, some courses
were tested, many individual legs were run and various route choices were
timed. Every control site was reviewed for fairness and possible positions of
the flag were considered. The whole philosophy was to present an appropriate
continuous challenge and to require all competitors to find the control
feature rather than run to the flag. In summary I quote from an email to me from a well known and respected
top class competitor: "I hadn't initially realized that Steve was the planner, but as I
progressed round the course the hallmarks of a well planned and technical
course all pointed in Steve's direction. There was no dead running and tracks
were generally just not an option. It is pretty rare to have a course that
forces you to run straight as much as that did, so full marks for a job well done."
Waiting at the finish, Steve and I did receive several comments about
the crossing points into the arena and we both solicited comments on the
waterproof maps. Taking the crossing points first, Steve has made some comments and I
provide an extract from the Appendix to the Rules on Course Planning: If the controls are to be visited in a prescribed order they shall be
joined by straight lines. These lines should be ...... broken or diverted to
indicate compulsory crossing points. In our opinion, there were three different situations over the 12
courses: a. On courses 1, 9 and 10, there was just one obvious crossing point,
so the lines were diverted through that crossing point, b. On courses 11 and 12, the straight line went through the crossing
point c. On courses 2 to 8, there was a choice of at least two crossing
points, so the straight line between the controls was broken. I trust that our discussions with various competitors on the day and
these explanations help resolve the comments. Turning to the waterproof maps, I believe that Steve and SN "did
the right thing" in carrying out a trial and, hopefully, it has helped
all involved in the sport. I try to summarise our opinions after the the event: A very wet day and a rough forest, so a good test for the maps.
Competitors who had been out in the worse of the weather came back with "limp"
maps, but still totally intact and very readable. However there was evidence
of print loss at the points where the maps had been folded. This was not the
case on the A4 maps (juniors and short courses), but very evident on the
A3's. Competitors did not mention it when they finished but when questioned
to look carefully at the map, you could see the
print loss areas. This occurred on the maps that had been used by M21/M35/M40
(typically racing for over 70 mins). A large percentage of the runners chose to put their map in an
unsealed poly bag in their own time. Lots of reasons given for this, most of
them in fear of ripping their map since runners had been made aware that this
was possible. Having said that we did not see anyone finish with a torn map.
However, the map was very easy to tear if you use your nails, it is not tyvek. In summary - For an A4 map, Steve and I would have no problem in using
the material again - we do think the "white is not as white", i.e.
when compared to a standard print on paper it looks a bit dirty; but again
there was not a single mention of this by the runners. For maps on A3, to be
used by long race competitions, we might still go for the more traditional
map in bag. As always, the experience of the printer is needed to ensure that
colours and shades of colour are as expected. We are providing this feedback to the printers and we hope that they
will consider our comments and pass them on to their suppliers. The new paper
is a big step forward and does save the hours spent bagging the maps in the
days (hours!) before the event. We look forward to hearing feedback from
others who ran at this event and at other events in the future The map trial is just another example of the time spent by voluntary
officials who want to develop / improve our sport. The amount of effort put
in by Steve, Paul and many others in SN is immense, we should be grateful to
all of them for their continuing involvement. Tim Pugh (GO) |
Planners Comments
It’s been a
while since I last planned an event other than a club training event on Long
Valley North, in fact it was possible 13 years ago when I planned JK93 day 2. I
made a promise to myself not to look at any of the maps from that experience
until I had finished 
planning all the courses for
Sunday’s event – didn’t want to copy myself!
For those
of you who took the time to say thank-you, thanks, it is appreciated. Planning
can take a long time, thinking about what you are trying to test in the
competitor, making sure they have something to keep their brain busy on, if not
every leg, then most – I hope at the end you felt both physically and mentally
challenged.
Sorry to
those who found the bit of forest that managed to get missed off the ocad file. I looked back and it
used to be there … in fact as many of you told me it still is there. This
missing block could be found on course 5/7 (#176->#255), and course 6
(#237->#255) – if it’s any consolation I will add it for future events.
There was a little confusion with some
runners over the overprinting used around the arena. The fence around the arena
is an uncrossable boundary, which coupled with the
path that runs along side that may have made it difficult to distinguish as
such. Following ISOM2000, the uncrossable boundary
was marked with a 0.7 purple line, along with the standard crossing point symbol ) (. Then in line with the data in Appendix B the
connecting lines were broken to avoid an area that could not be crossed. No
single crossing point was compulsory, and although on number of courses there
was an obvious choice, it was not always the case.
Oh well,
another event done … I look forward to running at the next event you plan.
Finally
huge thanks to my great friends in the club who not only put out controls at
6:45am, but retrieved them in the pouring rain later that afternoon, and to our
controller Tim, who ensured we all had a great day.
Steve
McKinley
Organisers Comments
Well we did
our best to provide an interesting and challenging event. I hope that you all enjoyed the event, sorry
about the weather but it did ensure that the waterproof maps were given a
really good test. I ran during the worst
of the weather and my map was soaked.
However, it did NOT fall apart or loose definition and was perfectly
readable to the end. I will certainly
use the waterproof maps again.
As always
there are many people involved in organising such an event. Despite the poor weather we attracted 120+ entries
on the day. My thanks to all the SN
members, some of whom gave up the opportunity of a run to ensure it all worked
smoothly.
Finally a
request for a lady runner who wishes to pass on her thanks to the runner who helped
release her from a barbed wire entanglement, she was most appreciative.
Paul
Wallace-Stock