St Andrews Urban Race

Sun 04th Mar 2012

Info updated: 19th Feb
Type of event: Regional
Type of terrain: Parkland, Urban

Results

Results - Winsplits - RouteGadget - BOF Results Pictures in our gallery

General Information

Commments

Comments from the various event officials.

Planner

One of the many challenges facing the urban planner is getting the distance right. BOF event guideline E provides direction and I generally used the upper end of the distance range. I tried to apply a concept of ‘a middle distance race in the town’; rapid decision making, multiple route choices and high number of controls. The winning times suggest middle distance type results. I suspect some runners would have been content to run for 10 to 15 minutes longer and perhaps there should be some debate about revising the targets in BOF guideline E upwards. I hope that all runners on all courses found themselves mentally challenged and were encouraged to make decisions much more frequently than they would do on a classic forest race. Urban O is still young and debate will be useful. I expect that there will be plenty on the web forums.

Clive Masson, ESOC

Organiser

This event ran pretty smoothly on the day. Fortunately the early rain cleared just in time for the first start and our chalked out start boxes held for the duration of the event. During the course of the day someone had managed to break or cut a very strong cable tie which held a gate closed - probably not an orienteer as something beyond brute force would have been needed. The open gate could have been an attractive and quicker route on a leg however this was very quickly rectified. Other issues relating to ‘illegal’ routes were dealt with by the planner and controller on the day. A lot of ESOC members put in a huge amount of work to make the St Andrews weekend happen. It was certainly a very long weekend but I enjoyed it very much indeed.

Margaret Dalgleish (ESOC)

Location

Nearest town: St Andrews

• Grid Ref: NO504167
• Postcode:
• Latitude: 56.34118
• Longitude: -2.8075
• Google Map (aerial) - Bing Map (OS)

Directions

Registration & Start Times

Course Information

All up to date information is in the Final Details for this event - see link above.

Explanation of colour courses

• White are very easy with all controls on paths. They are mainly used by 6-10 year olds and family groups.
• Yellow use simple linear features like paths, walls and streams. They are mainly used by under 12’s and family groups.
• Orange progress to basic use of the compass and route choice. They are ideal for novice adults or experienced youngsters.
• Light Green are ideal for improvers as the navigational difficulty begins to increase and uses simple contours and point features.
• Green are used mostly by experienced under 18’s and adults wanting a short but challenging course with a very hard navigational difficulty.
• Blue are a longer, more physically demanding course in comparison to the green. The distances are more varied between controls and the course attracts experienced orienteers.
• Brown & Black are very physically demanding and have a very hard navigational difficulty. They are for experienced orienteers only.
• Score means visiting as many controls as possible in any order in a specific time, like 45mins.

Entry Details

Pre-entry has now closed.
Enquiries about entries (only) by email to
There may be limited EOD depending on map availability.

Contacts / Officials

Safety and Risk

A comprehensive risk assessment will have been carried out by the organiser, but participants take part at their own risk and are responsible for their own safety during the event.

Privacy: when entering our events your name may appear in the results section of this website or in newspaper reports.
Read our privacy policy to see how we look after your personal data.