The Reports

Co-ordinators:

Bringing you four events in three days is a challenge of logistics and manpower.  As Co-ordinators we found it pleasing to see our Clubs on to form, delivering a hectic schedule with (hopefully) no visible fuss.  The Shropshire-Herefordshire borders provide views of outstanding beauty and physically challenging courses.  It was therefore most gratifying to note just how many runners were prepared to enter the Ludlow Urban race only hours after completing their second run of the weekend.  Our thanks go all the event officials and their teams who made the weekend most enjoyable despite some dampness late on.  Particular thanks go to Angela at the Monstay Farm campsite and the Social Organisers for the Ceilidh and the Quiz that completed the SinS 2011 package.

We will be seeking your feedback over the next few days to shape the planning for SinS 2013 so that we can make it even better. 

Richard Lewis and Eric Brown

Day 1

Organiser:

Brampton Bryan must be one of the most beautiful settings for staging an Orienteering event.  The added bonus of sunshine hopefully made the day enjoyable for all.

Many thanks to all the helpers who made it such a success, particularly HOC members who came to the rescue after the marquee was found upside down in a ditch at 7:30 on the morning of the event after becoming a casualty of the overnight wind.   A special mention is due to Alison Yeates (WCH) and Liz and Alan Yeadon (SARUM) who helped set up and dismantle Assembly.

We would like to offer our thanks to the Harley Estate for allowing us to use the area for Orienteering and to Richard Harris, tenant farmer, who moved his sheep to the top of the hill away from the car park and Assembly.  The few he left behind were slowly making their way towards us, but didn’t quite make it to the open gates before we left!   Special thanks go to Mick Greenan, the gamekeeper who was very helpful and friendly throughout.  

Lesley Brown

Planner:

Brampton Bryan has to one of the best places to plan an event in the Midlands, a beautiful and generally empty and secluded hill with spectacular views (hopefully most competitors glanced these as they ran past at speed…) and, excepting the light rain on the morning of the event, consistently good weather, so planning this event was more a pleasure than a chore (at least for me).

The idea of the event was to give a variety of legs – technical, fast, route-choice – as well as a variety of terrain (albeit a lot of it was steep). Hopefully everyone found this was the case. Fortunately, the rapidly developing undergrowth was still mainly low enough not to be a problem – a few weeks before I had visions of the entire hill being overrun by head-high bracken for the event.

Thanks are especially due to Andy, my extremely patient controller, but also to Robert Vickers and Colin Spears for their checking of control sites, updating of maps and help placing controls. But thanks are also due to the competitors, who happily challenged some worryingly vertical slopes (and that was just on the way to the start) on the first day of a three-day event. Hopefully all competitors enjoyed running the event as much as I did planning it.

Allan McKinley

Controller:

Day 2: 

Organiser:

Two days of competition back to back is a massive effort for a small club like Wrekin, the use of the same assembly for both days certainly make things somewhat easier. Nevertheless I have nothing but admiration for the dedicated and cheerful work put in by everyone on the Wrekin Team, with many being on their feet from early morning to nightfall and still having to be ready to repeat the dose on day 3.

The amount of work which goes unnoticed behind the scenes to even deliver the event is enormous, as I am sure the joint coordinators will testify. Monstay farm could not have been more helpful to our preparation, even down to making a pathway for day 3 organiser Mike's splendid string course, which was used on both days with variations. Fortunately we had no complaints concerning wrongly sited animals, but we ran out of maps on day 2 due to the demand.

I really feel for planner Peter Jones having the misfortune of a misplaced control after the huge number of hours he had spent in both forests to produce the event maps and plan sixteen courses for day 2. The BO guidelines were followed to allocate age classes to the seemingly endless colour combinations, however these guidelines do appear to be flawed which resulted in unbalanced numbers on some similar courses.

Following an official complaint concerning the misplaced control 146, we have ultimately agreed to void the legs to and from this control on every course affected.

Brian Morris

Planner:

In 2009 my Planner's notes ended - "Whilst planning is the best job, once you discover you are putting out controls and not using them on any courses its time to call it a day." Two years on a new twist on control placing resulted from my leaving odd bits of tape at potential sites and forgetting them, only to have a control misplaced at one rather than at the numbered taped site nearby.

This error was unfortunate for the competitor but devastating for me having spent six months producing the first ocad map of a large forest that had not been surveyed for nineteen years. In future I would place all controls myself or at least expect the placer to confirm the site by a numbered tape.

The vegetation depiction has been difficult. I didn’t have the survey time to detail patches of walk in mainly fight so for this edition I went for blanket fight to deter those of a nervous disposition from using the direct route across the heavily vegetated valley for example. Those choosing the heroic route took the risk and reaped the rewards if they were lucky.

The courses were physical and times were slightly longer than guideline but I felt these aspects were justified if they extracted the best orienteering out of the area by crossing terrain and minimising road running.  It was particularly difficult to get all courses flowing in the same direction because of the unusable central fields and High Vinnalls hill itself dividing the area in two.

I do hope you found some interesting challenges in this rarely used terrain. Access permission came as a surprise as virtually all our previous SinS forest venues are now closed to orienteering March to July.

My thanks to Rollo Rumford for his flexible approach and time spent beyond the Controllers call of duty, and to Brian Morris and his on the day team who delivered the event without a hitch.    

Pete Jones

Controller:

High Vinnals is a challenging area on which to plan as it has significant climb, big patches of fight and a good track network. Peter Jones made an excellent job in providing challenging courses with many opportunities for route choice. Control (146) which was initially in the wrong place ( my fault!) was put right but it was decided to void the legs before and after to be fair to all competitors.  The event ran smoothly and complimentary comments were made by many on finishing.

Rollo Rumford

Day 2 Urban:

Organiser: 

Whatever happened “Ludlow Urban race - a low-key extra to the main events”? 

The entry and turn out are testament to the continued growth in popularity of this form of orienteering.

These comments are one big thank you – thanks to the gallant start team for the good humour and efficiency with which they dispatched so many orienteers with the correct safety information and the right map. Thank you to download and SI for staying calm and efficient in the face of technical glitches,  to Dave for guarding the Buttercross, to Andy for spotting the bits that were missing and plugging the gaps and a huge thank you to Lesley & Eric Brown for all they did.

Thanks too to the competitors who queued good-naturedly at the start and again at download, and to those who provided constructive feedback. 

And last but far from least - thanks to Peter for helping Andy to break into our car when I managed to lock the keys inside.....

Marian White

Planner:

Other than the occasional training evening here in South Shropshire this was my first venture into serious planning. Throughout the exercise I was helped enormously by my patient and avuncular controller Russ,  to whom I owe a big debt of thanks.

Ludlow is a small town with lots of dead-end roads and alleyways. This meant dog legs were practically inherent in the  plan from the outset.  As well as trying to create an orienteering challenge out of Ludlow I also wanted to get as many of you as possible into seeing the sights of the town.  

The best sights were allocated to the A and B courses. The A runners were able to see the entire town from a lofty height (see photograph page) and the B runners had that lovely path along the far river bank. However, I suspect they all had little time to stop and look!

A couple of days before closing date the pre- booked numbers suddenly doubled to well over four hundred.  Regrettably, on the night, and probably because of the early rain and the exhausting effort of running at Brampton and High Vinnals, about seventy of you dropped out and the competing three hundred plus were very well spread out comfortably all over the town. 

The only down side I witnessed was a few beery folk in the  Bull Hotel courtyard pushing and handling a female runner up the stairs from the courtyard. It appears they did it to several of you. I hope those affected were not too put out.

We had one control site with an incorrect control description - my fault entirely, it was a late change to compensate for the  nearby gate being locked. Thankfully everybody found the control  but your  complaints were generally rendered amicably. Thank you.

From the feedback it appears that for the absent  seventy it was their loss. We had sunshine, warm air and the rain stopped before we ever started.

A balmy evening indeed !

Graham Hardy

Controller:

“ I learn, Mr Fawlty. I learn.”

The introduction of the urban event into the SINS format has been a learning experience for all concerned.  I was anticipating a little D level event with around 120 competitors.  Instead, we had an almost overwhelming 400 entries, of which 310 took part. 

When I saw the first version of the map, I was disappointed.  How could one put a decent urban event, in line with BO guidelines, on such an uninteresting area from  an orienteering point of view?  Well, Rod did more work and expanded the map into something with more potential.  Even so, I thought that the orienteering challenges were so low that the only tactic would be to make it scenic.  I hope the A and B competitors enjoyed their runs through Whitcliff and over Ludford Bridge for their scenic value at least.  The addition of Whitcliff allowed Graham to achieve the Guideline course lengths.

I was very pleased that Graham and I got some things right.  The course lengths were good with winning times and median times being quite close.  The guideline ratios proved very helpful.  Whilst patrolling, I was really pleased to see that competitors were reading their map with great care at the start of the leg.  This meant that the aim of getting the need to think about route choice was successful.

On speaking to competitors while queuing at the download, there was considerable enthusiasm for the courses apart from control 42.  Please accept my apologies; I did not get that right.  As always there were problems with this site.  First of all, the origin site turned out to be within a locked alley.  The next site had nowhere to successfully secure the control but, most seriously, we did not update the control description which, in any case, was faulty.

There are number of people we should thank, who rose to challenge as the event grew and grew.  First of all, the planner Graham, put a lot of time into revising the courses and preparing the controls.  His solution for securing controls and informing the public of their function could well be copied for other events.

Marian, the organiser, and her family were involved in every aspect of the event on the day.  They coped magnificently and cheerfully with the large entry.  The download team, Jill and Charlie Leventon, also should be thanked for remaining calm whilst  processing so many finishers despite their computer not behaving as expected.  Thanks to Eric and Lesley for being so flexible and stepping in where the need was greatest.  Finally, to Dave Gittus for overseeing the control at the Buttercross and keeping the public entertained and informed about what was happening.

And thanks for all the nice comments that we have received.  

Russ Fauset

PS  I think we all did a lot of good taking the sport of orienteering out of the forest and into the town .

Day 3:

Organiser:

Some background:

Things were looking grim. Some Government quango had decided that if there were no organised events in  (our!) forests, there might be more birds.

Fortunately our friends at the Mortimer Forest Office listened to our proposals that we really, really needed a forest (or two) to continue with Springtime which we had run biennially with HOC since the 1980’s. They offered us High Vinnals and Bringewood and when I asked about possible campsites they suggested Monstay Farm. How lucky was that?

And so to this year:

Pete Jones put in hundreds of hours on surveying and cartography for the two forests as well as planning Day 2. If you thought your course was challenging, just think how many miles he walked. If you had a tricky control, imagine how tough it was for our Controllers who had to cover the whole area looking for tiny tapes on up to 70 control sites. We are grateful for their dedication to our sport. Planner Tony, helped by Clive, was up at 6 am to put out controls on Bringewood.

I was up worrying about the slippery slope to the start with its blue rope. Hope you all made it. One thing I didn’t have to worry about was Wrekin’s Splendid Team. They stuck to their tasks in the grim weather and performed magnificently.

We at Wrekin would like to thank the ladies who helped Sharon after her fall, some giving up their runs  to comfort  her, some lending their cagoules and some hurrying to the Finish to raise the alarm. Husband Clive phoned that evening to say she had a cracked rib. We hope she will soon return to her now favourite job at the Start, making sure you are on your correct time!

We would welcome some constructive feedback on this, our first Middle Distance Event. Planning constraints on course lengths meant that Tony and Barry had to work extra hard to make it all fit. Controls were close together, but  Final Details warned of this. In Download I heard someone  who had had a fast run say, ‘ Oh no, I checked every one… except for the last one..mispunch!’

Some thought an early run was a disadvantage because there were few other runners around. Others thought of later, busier runs,  ‘It was very confusing, runners everywhere, you really had to focus, but it added to the excitement.’  Middle Distance with hundreds of runners. Would you like another one?

Be warned, for next Springtime, entries may  close at least a fortnight earlier, to make things easier for our hardworking entries team when hundreds of you (hopefully) return. You will pre-enter won’t you, it’s so much easier (and cheaper)?

Mike Callow

Planner:

'Middle Distance' was really the only way we could use Bringewood without killing you all off after Brampton Bryan and then Vinnalls. .....and a proposed urban event...and a beer tent. A third full length race in this sort of terrain would have just been too much.

The FC assisted by chopping large blocks of it just when we were having second thoughts. Very fortunately, a severe gale in January left the rest relatively unscathed.

 The BOF-speak 'planning philosophy' behind middle distance is 'fast accurate navigation over a moderately long period of time (30-35 min. lead times) with even small mistakes decisive, as much technical difficulty as possible, small and medium scale route choice with the emphasis on high speed running and the need to adjust speed for the complexity of the terrain.'

This and some pretty untested, 'guidelines' were about all we had to go on with this newish format. At the time of calendar and venue fix I was the experienced one in my club, having done two middle distance races. Controller Barry Mcgowan from HOC admitted to one.

Still - this is SINS and trying new formats, and areas, is part of what we do. 

With a finish area fixed at landowners request and only one logical start working - lack of technical terrain and the steepness of the area and then the shortness of courses were the main constraints. Not all the blocks are useable so we settled on  loops, slightly over-long for the longer courses, a little short for the others to visit the best useable bits. Changes of direction are not easy to offer on a ridge but changes of running speed there were aplenty. Extreme  pace changes on the longer courses, hitting more technical controls after a pacey start and later on the climb found a few out as oxygen debt kicked in. Going back over the ridge into gloomy, but fast, forest to a couple more controls that required good technique, found a few more out. 

The shorter courses had relatively more time in slower blocks which required good compass work and choice of attack points to get completely right.

From the start I planned to have the longer courses facing the up/down or round conundrum  or two, between the pumping stations mid race. The height corrected distance is actually the same for both of the longer routes - if tempted by seeing the flag into the direct line without counting the contours you should have had a deserved nasty shock on crossing the first much smaller ridge and facing the deeper second gorge. Routegadget splits here may be interesting. In the wet the much longer track option should be quicker. 

It is a shame the rain prevented you from seeing the glorious views from the start area (including nearly all the previous SINS event areas) but hopefully all will have all enjoyed  the varied flora, including some late bluebells, ferns, ancient trees, etc, as most courses visited a variety of forest blocks. 

A small number of competitors, on the brown and black courses reported having problems with pit control 43 in the old quarry area. We appreciate that some of you did lose at the time apparently significant minutes here , on approaching it from above and finding it lower than expected. It probably is a few metres out of position and the contours in this very complex area need yet more checking. Your very experienced mapper, planner and controller have spent a lot of time in and around this pit and traversing from one feature to another in this area and yet hadn't spotted this problem, so our apologies and thank you for taking it in the spirit of an event that goes to new areas with the inevitable minor map flaws that first use nearly always entails.

Some other minor quibbles about when a thicket is or isn't a thicket, ditto a platform, hide, path junction, significant tree, clearing, vegetation boundary, smiley face etc. etc.  apart - most runners seem to have enjoyed the challenges posed. We would appreciate feedback on whether you think a 'middle distance' works within a SINS weekend, particularly as 'urban' is likely to stay as part of the mix and the Shropshire hills used are never less than physically demanding, especially in May.  A significant number of competitors didn't even make it as far as day 3 ! 

The results themselves tell an interesting story. Very, very few 'sinners' navigating cleanly and precisely enough for 30-35 mins to be contenders in this format of race. Really a 30 second - minute error here and there and you should be out of it, on a flatter / drier area most would be.

Some mad punching of  nowhere-near-the-vicinity controls from some very experienced orienteers also evident . Following ? Delirious ?  Race pressure ?  A serious tactic ???

Take a look at the kids as a good example to some of you - not one of them mispunched. 

Course times were close to the expected about 40 mins for the longer courses and 35 ish for the shorter ones. Green course guidelines probably need changing for the speedy teens....but as usual it does depend on who turns up on the day, a little on luck as well as skill, stamina, determination, focus, as with all orienteering courses. Also how many elephants have travelled before you on your chosen route, whether those elephants were navigationally challenged ,who you run alongside, competitor flow, just how hideously bright the shirt is of the person emerging from your control site in the far distance.... etc...etc....and the weather.

One of our volunteer team ,Sharron Richardson from Wrekin had a lot of bad luck, with a nasty slip late on her course that resulted in a cracked rib, but is thankfully recovering well.

I have calculated  times for each course as run by an ultimate (possibly scandinavian) orienteer made up from the best bits of you lot, by adding up fastest splits. Didn't these used to be called 'ideal times' or something? It would be nice to see them in all results listings - someone please come up with a better name for this 'time'.

Well done to the course winners, of all ages, especially those that got closest to these notional times. A big thank you also to controller Barry and the usual fantastic Wrekin event management teams.

 Tony Callow

Controller:

When I first went round the area early in the year using the 12 year old map I was concerned that the area was not really suitable for a middle race with its emphasis on technical short legs.

Tony has explained above the planning philosophy, per guideline C, and I felt the steepness and relative blandness of the area together with the inherent danger of downhill bikers made it rather marginal. The location however by the camp site and other areas for a multi day event made it very suitable.

When we got the first draft of the new map in February, although an excellent map with much more detail, I was again rather concerned that a large proportion of Tony’s control features were not on the map or not quite where he had marked them. Gradually however this was sorted.

The guideline suggests a win time of 30-35 minutes. It suggests courses should be 50% of full length for black and brown, tapering down to 63% for green and 74% for light green.

Tony was particular keen on giving competitors the route choice or running the siphon or round the contouring track. The fastest leg between the structures I think, incidentally, was 2.16mins. Any course that used this, however, would have a minimum 220m climb, a large chunk out of their overall course length. I think for the short blues (M65, W45-50 and some short courses) it was a section too far. It did however avoid a large green area and heavily vegetated rough open.

I had agreed to let Tony have courses longer than the guidelines on the basis that other middle events, including the British, seemed to exceed them. Times were however, generally rather long.

Some people commented about control 43, which was not on Pete’s original draft.

Two courses, black and brown, approached from the North across quite complex ground and 12 competitors were 2 or more minutes over optimum.

Two courses approached from below, short brown 1 and blue 2. 13 competitors were more than 2 minutes over optimum.

From subsequent checking it was decided the control was a contour line too high and 10m too far east.

Nobody made a formal complaint and after discussions with the jury, a decision was taken not to void the control. I can only apologise to those who lost out. 

Barry McGowan