Long O, Pentlands, 1st Jun 2008
ORGANISER’S COMMENTS
(Controller’s Comments below Organiser’s Comments)
This event came about through the Friends of the Pentlands looking for more activity in the southern hills away from the honeypots of Dreghorn and Flotterstone and the splendid hospitality of George and Janet Burke of Patieshill, who hosted an event for the Friends last year and offered to do the same for us. Everyone seemed to enjoy running in a “new” area.
An indoor room, mains electricity and a small select team of helpers made the organisation easy. My main worry was the cows and calves on the way to the Start, but no-one else seemed to be concerned by them. We find the Long-O fun, and it’s good to see many people who are not regular orienteers enjoying it.
Lost Property: A lovely new-looking Silva Compass, with magnifier; found on the route to the Start. Contact me to get it back.
Janet Clark, Organiser 0131 225 7771
CONTROLLER’S COMMENTS
I hope those who attended enjoyed your runs and the later starters have dried out finally. Apologies to the competitors on the Short course where we managed to contrive to put the control in the wrong place. I shall try to briefly explain below how or why this happened and will be exploring this further with the ESOC team to try to find ways of reducing the likelihood of a reoccurrence of this problem. During the week leading up to and including the day I was running in the Pentlands for in excess of ten hours and fatigue may have played a part in the following error of judgment.
I was checking the control sites on the morning of the race when I reached Mark who was still putting out the controls. We had less than an hour until the first starters and he still had five sites to put out. I had visited the control site that was done in error a few minutes earlier and this was one that Mark still had to put out. I made an error in judgment in that, as Mark was looking very tired I said I would put out the last four controls for him, leaving him only that one site to do. I had thought it obvious enough that I did not think he would have a difficulty with this one but alas I was wrong. In not visiting this site after the control was put out, this is where I let you guys, and also Mark down, and for that I apologize.
I should thank Mark for his work in planning what I hope were interesting courses and to Janet and here team of helpers for a smooth running event and a very civilized assembly area. I would also commend the team for trying to use the less used areas of the Pentlands as it is good to be running in areas you are less familiar with and away from the crowds.
Posted on 01st Jun 08
by Admin -
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