Holyrood Ultrasprint Results
Results are now available for the Ultrasprint event today (maps now on the same page too)
There are also some pictures in the gallery now.
Thanks to all who attended, thankfully we got lovely weather for it!
It was a close fought competition between the men with juniors Jamie Stevenson (FVO) and Alasdair McLeod (EUOC) taking 1st and 2nd ahead of WOC Sprint star Murray Strain (INT), who had to take a 2min penalty after punching an incorrect control.
The women’s race was less closely fought with ESOCs World Champs runner Helen Bridle taking the victory by a few minutes from another ESOC member, Rona Lindsay, who’s currently preparing for the Junior European Champs next month. Mary Ross (INT) just pipped Jane Ackland (also INT) by a few seconds to take 3rd place.
As with all of our races, if you have any comments (good or bad!) please get in touch and let us know. All your comments help us to bring you better events :)
Comments - Planner
I was asked to plan an ultra sprint after originally putting on a similar, very informal night event at our local park. I was given the venue of Holyrood park and in particular the flat area at the northern end. This had the advantage that it would make a good spectator event, however the map did lack enough usefull features. I was fortunate enough to have a helpfull and patient controller in Martin Quirke who did far more than was his remit as controller. He was able to make the necessary map additions and alterations required.
Although an ultra sprint suggests a very short event it was thought that we needed to give the competitors long enough courses to make their trip to the event worthwhile. Therefore we opted for 3 couses of approximately 2km each, all courses would be run by each competitor, the winner having the fastest combined time. The courses were not made any longer as we didn’t want to put any of the younger/older/less experienced orieteers off, this did mean however that the more technical areas of the map could not be used.
The idea of the ultra sprint was to have quick thinking as well as at times quick running, that is why there were many controls within a small area, some on similar features. To make the event even more challenging we took off the control codes, giving a 2minute time penalty for each mis-punch made. This did encourage competitors to look at their map carefully.
The maze was made out of tapes which did take some time to erect. It was inserted onto the map via condes as a jpg, this did take several attempts to get right. Again thanks to Martin for this, as I was only happy with my pen and squared paper. The maze was entered 3 times on each course for 2 or three controls, it required a change in technique from the fast runnning of the other controls.
It was necessary to put on a beginners course, so we decided to use soley the 21 controls in the maze and this time to give the competitors the control codes. This worked well and once they were finished competitors were asked if they wanted to do another of the courses available.
It was a spectacle watching young, old and elite orienteers all runnning around the maze at the same time, some flowing perfectly from control to control and others stopping, starting and backtracking. I think everyone had fun and it was a very worthwhile event to put on. Thankyou to everyone who helped out and those who came along to compete and make the event a succsess.
Helena Nolan
Rachel Fawthrop - Organiser
Thank you all for coming! There were more of you than we expected, and you all seemed to have FUN, which was the point of this far from ordinary orienteering. I thought it was terrific watching orienteers of all ages and levels of experience dashing about and competing together in the maze.
Many thanks to everyone involved in putting the event on, and a special thank you to Run4It (http://www.run4it.com) who generously provided gift vouchers for the winners.
I have the remaining stock of maps; get in touch with me if you’d like one (or more).
Rachel Fawthrop
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Martin Quirke - Controller
From the outset this was always intended to be a FUN event, so I was happy to encourage Helena to forget about the usual conventions and rules of the sport, in order to come up with an unusual, fun and interesting format. I think we both learned a bit about how straying from typical orienteering formats can add to the challenge of planning in unexpected ways:
- The Maze : (Helena’s specialty at this point!) Involved striking a balance between adequate challenge yet still being simple enough for younger kids to enjoy.
- The Map: This short and intense style of event probably wouldn’t work near as well without the modifications we made to both map style and scale. We added several features, and carried out general map updates. Of course there was also the question of how to represent the larger scale maze with control circles but without the graphic confusion of having lines between circles.
- Controls: Controls were always going to be close together inside the maze. However here, even out in the park they were closer to each other than usual IOF guidelines. For example, different sides of the same building or either side of two adjacent benches. This idea was to give competitor the added challenge of having to read the control descriptions very carefully (without control numbers for re-assurance)
- No Control codes: Added to the challenge in a similar way, especially within the maze. You just had to be sure of where you were!
- Time penalties: Rather than disqualifications for mis-punching were again in the spirit of FUN: And only fair in light of the challenge! The time penalty was deliberately set at 2 minutes in order to allow people who are slower runners but quick thinkers a chance at gaining competitive advantage through deliberate mis-punch (How far can you run in 2 minutes?) However in hind sight I think the penalty could have been set as less, and our cunning scheme perhaps even advertised?
- Unusual Format :I must admit I had started to worry when seeing confused reactions from some competitors as instructions were repeated on the start line. (Perhaps I should not ask how / or why they’d managed to avoid the posters and handouts explaining it all). However I was relieved when the first few finishers on each course came back with big smiles on their faces.
- Delayed Prize Giving: An early backlog of people waiting to start was eased once we set up lanes for individual courses. This also removed some of the confusion of which course to do, in in what order. Unfortunately the backlog had been sufficient enough to push back the finishing time of final runners. This therefore also pushed back prize-giving longer than some of the eventual winners could wait around. Arrangements are being made to get prizes to some of the deserving winners who were not around for prize giving.
Well done to Helena for planning such a fun and exciting event, to Rachel for her calm-under-pressure as first time Organiser, Andrew for timing (and working out the time penalties). Many thanks to all the many helpers on the day, and of course congratulations to the winners of various prizes!
Perhaps I should point out for the record that I did run one course on the day, and even as controller managed to mis-punch! (in the maze). I guess that means the planner did a very good job, and perhaps I need to read maps a little more carefully!
Martin
Posted on 29th Aug 10
by Andrew Dalgleish - Webmaster
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