Holme Fell Long Distance Race
- Sunday, 22 May 2011
Right from my first involvement I knew that this would be an excellent event. Holme Fell is one of the best areas going and Dick and Mike's first draft courses already looked good. I just had to stick to the fine detail and everything went smoothly - no crises. On the day Norma's team slipped efficiently into action despite the club having put on a similar event the day before.
One of the great things about orienteering is the chance you get to compete on the same terrain and at the same time as the very best competitors. This was particularly the case at this event which was used as a World Champs selection race. Dick and Mike produced elite courses which perfectly met the critera requested by the selectors, right down to getting very close to the recommended winning times of 95 mins (21E) and 75 mins (W21E).
Thanks are also due to Gareth Candy the International Performance Director for the way that he liaised with the planners on this. He gave them a very clear brief which you can read below and arranged for the photo litho 1:15,000 maps to be printed and paid for.
Holme Fell offers limited opportunities for White, Yellow and Orange courses but Dick and Mike overcame this and produced just what is needed, with the right winning times and no retirements or disqualifications.
Winning times on Short Green and Very Short Green were rather long. Their length was correct in relation to other courses. It may be that the conditions on the day together with the unrelenting physical and technical nature of Holme Fell makes it difficult to get this right, whilst maintaining the high technical difficulty that experienced competitors expect.
Many thanks and congratulations to Norma, Dick, Mike and all of the LOC helpers for putting on such an excellent event. I very much enjoyed working with them on it.
Best wishes to the British Team for the World Championships in France in August. Let's hope that this event has played it part in its success.
Brian Jackson (SROC)
Brief for the Elite Courses
Long Distance orienteering places a high emphasis on physical endurance, but the course should require a mix of all orienteering skills: route choice, technical orienteering and physical fitness. - Aims to test the athletes‟ ability to make efficient route choices, read and interpret the map and plan the race for endurance. - Significant route choice including some large scale route choices – the control is the end point of a long leg and is not necessarily difficult to find. - May include elements characteristic of the Middle Distance with sections of more technically demanding legs. - Typically 15-30 controls. - Tough, mostly forested terrain allowing good route choice possibilities. - Map scale 1:15 000. - Start interval 2 or 3 minutes. - Winning time Men 95 minutes, Women 75 minutes.
Course Planning- The prime requirement for courses is fairness.
There must be
- No questionable control locations
- No elements of luck in determining the best route choices
- No controls where the presence of another runner can give away the location of the control
- No elements of surprise with regards to map symbols
- No map errors which might influence the race
The second requirement for the courses is a balanced orienteering challenge. The courses should be as difficult as the terrain permits.
Specific Requirements
- The long distance races at World Championships now always have a gaffled section aimed to split up any packs which have formed during the race. This will usually be at around 60% of the course and consist of several short legs in a technical section of the map.
Enjoying the warm spring sunshine in April and early May I feared we would pay for it later, and so indeed as we were collecting equipment from Bigland on Saturday afternoon the heavens opened and we were setting up on Sunday morning in rain, gale force winds, and even bursts of hail. Apologies for the lack of shelter to leave your spare clothing - my plan to use the club tunnel tent soon had to be abandoned in the high winds. Nevertheless LOC members set to with a will and all was ready in time, and we were soon rewarded by an hoped for improvement in the weather. At the end of the event people were sitting in the sun relaxing and chatting.
There was no lack of willing volunteers to run the event and the considerable body of experience in the club really came to the fore - when the LOC machine swings into action everything just falls into place. My sincere thanks to everybody who came along and did their bit in such a calm and cheery manner. It was a pleasure to work with them all.
Sandwiched in between the British and Scottish Championships we did not know how many competitors to expect. In the end we had 614 entries, a good number of whom entered in the last 24 hours.
Thanks to Mike and Dick, the planners and Brian Jackson, the controller, for the high-quality courses - we received many favourable comments. I hope you all enjoyed the opportunity to orienter on this prime area, with the bonus of the views of the Langdale Pikes when the weather cleared. We look forward to seeing you in the South Lakes again soon.
Routegadget is now uploaded. There may be a problem with the butterfly loop on the Elite courses - if this is the case, please contact Iain Smith-Ward. iainsmith-ward@tiscali.co.uk Many thanks
Colour Standards
| Course | Time |
|---|---|
| BLACK | 173:27 |
| BROWN | 117:07 |
| SHORT BROWN 1 | 95:47 |
| SHORT BROWN 2 | 88:31 |
| BLUE 1 | 100:18 |
| BLUE 2 | 101:01 |
| SHORT BLUE 1 | 132:57 |
| SHORT BLUE 2 | 87:08 |
| GREEN | 87:30 |
| SHORT GREEN | 107:45 |
| VERY SHORT GREEN | 131:44 |
| LT GREEN | 53:10 |
| ORANGE | 50:14 |
| YELLOW | 39:45 |
| WHITE | 46:45 |
There cannot be a much more rewarding area than Holme Fell to plan on and almost everyone we spoke to after their runs was very complimentary about the courses, even though many of them found the area tough, both physically and technically. It isn't often that courses can be planned which maintain a TD5 level throughout whilst providing some subtle changes of terrain and several testing long legs as well as a control-picking series of short legs.
It was good to see that there were plenty of short times on the White, Yellow, Orange and Light Green courses with no or very few retirals/disqualifications: Holme Fell is not the easiest of areas to plan acceptable TD 1- 4 courses. Winning times on most of the other courses were around what was expected but there was, inevitably, a very large spread of times after the leading pack, reflecting the high technical demands and probably also the relatively high climb/length ratios. We were a bit disappointed that the shortest technical courses (Very Short Green and to a lesser extent Short Green) didn't produce the expected shorter times at the top but these courses were planned to the guidelines and couldn't have been much shorter without compromising quality.
It was gratifying to see everything go so smoothly on the day. Not many UK clubs could manage two consecutive days of top-quality orienteering with such a high level of expert assistance from members across all aspects of the organisation. What a good thing it was that the three missing controls could be replaced early on Sunday morning before anyone started on their courses. We couldn't have put out all the SI boxes very early Sunday morning without the extra help from Gareth Candy (BOF), Toni Louhisola (BOF), Brian Jackson and Steve Buckley (LOC). We were also very grateful to the LOC volunteers who were willing to collect in the controls so quickly after the event. The fact that everything was done and dusted by 5 pm on Sunday was a testament to the efforts of these and many other LOC members.
Brian Jackson’s controlling was always thorough and helpful but never intrusive. The disappearance of many of the tube markers made careful final controlling even more tricky and vital. It was a pleasure to work with him.
Mike Atherton
Dick Towler
Last Modified: Sunday, 20 January 2013