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ORGANISER'S REPORT
Thank you all for coming. Although the numbers were a fewer than we hoped the enthusiasm and nice comments from all of you (no matter what your result) more than made up for it.
The race format was innovative and experimental, consisting of:
Comments from both experienced orienteers and those trying it for the first time showed that this levelling of the playing field was appreciated as a different kind of challenge.
The pattern in both races was for a lead group to form round the fastest experienced orienteer, who was then out-run in the closing stages by those with little or no orienteering experience, which I'm pleased to say is what was planned when the race format was conceived. The first 6 places on the "5k" (more like 6.5k) were decided on running speed from the last checkpoint, and on the 10k Duncan and Chris were overheard offering their thanks to third placer, Tony Burton. Duncan's irresistible sprint finish means we're all looking forward to his appearance in next year's Box Hill Fell Race.
Even those who missed their way said they were keen to have another go. Unfortunately for two of them our people in the field assumed everybody had gone through and so had taken checkpoints in by the time these two had corrected themselves. I know I should have re-inforced a "come back at a sensible time" instruction, but with many of you rushing from work to make the start it wasn't that easy
Quote of the night came from Thames captain, Nick Altmann - "when I found number 8, I thought 'I'm doing so badly I'm still behind Richard Weston' ". This only starts to make sense when you know that Nick was probably the fastest runner in the field but not an orienteer and that Richard, definitely "steady" as both an orienteer and a runner, had placed number 8 and was there watching the race go through! A few minutes later Nick finished in what he was surprised to learn was a close fourth place, which goes to show that in most navigational errors, the perceived time loss is vastly greater than the actual time loss.
Many thanks to the club members who helped on the night, especially Alan Leakey who planned the courses, organised the setting-out and manning of the checkpoints and acted as search party at the end. Judging from many of the comments afterwards we will be looking to make this an annual event.
Andy Robinson
PLANNERS REPORT
I seem to have planned a wide variety of events over the past year or so and each has brought its own particular challenge. In the case of the Trail Challenge it was a matter of trying to keep the orienteering simple whilst setting interesting courses. I also had to keep intrusion onto the golf course to a minimum.
I started with a very clear plan that all controls had to be on (or next to) paths, so that the interest would have to lie in the possibility of taking different routes rather finding controls in complex areas. Fairly early on I also decided to drop plans for parallel control sites to split the field, it just seemed to be adding unnecessary complexity.
The size of the area and the presence of the golf course then led to the course lengths. The Long course was as long as I make it without resorting to complicated crossovers. The Short course was as short as I could make it after circumnavigating the golf course.
Laser printed maps don’t give quite as good an end result as conventional printing but the ability to print the map complete with overprinted courses was both convenient for us and meant that you didn’t have to copy down your own courses, so I think everyone benefited. I hope that you agree and enjoyed the “Challenge”. See you next year.
Alan Leakey
Hope you had fun!
Last updated
15th June 2002
