Discussion: Were the courses too hard, or just right?

I've got a question that has popped up from time to time over the years after a day when the orienteering was very difficult, and it popped up again on Saturday at Quantico, and the question is, "How many orienteers did we lose today?"

Meaning, how many people got so discouraged, or annoyed, or pissed off, or just weren't having any fun at all, and as a result may be asking themselves, Why am I doing this? And maybe in the future, they do it a lot less. And maybe they also won't be so eager to tell their friends what a great sport it is.

The courses on Saturday were difficult. One can certainly argue that these were the US Champs, also a WRE, and they were appropriately difficult, just the way they should be. One can argue that there was great fun and a great sense of accomplishment in finishing the courses, just finishing them, because they were difficult.

Or one can argue that the Saturday courses were too hard, especially in two regards -- too much nasty vegetation, and controls that were placed at features that were too vague. And the result was too many people who were severely bummed.

And the first set of folks might say that the Saturday courses, combined with the somewhat easier Sunday courses, made for a weekend event that was just right, that tested one's physical and mental skills just as a championship event should. And while they might have beaten you down on Saturday, they lifted your spirits back up on Sunday and all was well.

And the second set of folks might answer, Was Saturday fun?

I'm just curious what others think. I think the course I ran, Green Y, was too hard. In particular, controls 2, 4, 5, and 6 were on features that were not distinct enough and/or not visible enough in the actual terrain to be suitable points. Had they been moved to nearby but more distinct features, people still would have made mistakes. But the frustration levels might have been substantially less. And I think that would have been better, especially since we have few enough orienteers as it is, so losing some is not a good thing.

Or is the consensus that things were just right as they were, and this is the way they should be at future championship events, and I'm just a wimp?

And just to be sure I'm not misunderstood, the weekend was great, QOC did a superb job, I had a lot of fun, I'll go back there any time, and my wounds (including my sliced ear and case of "greenbrier neck") should be healed in another week or so.... :-)

I would have to say that the orange course on Saturday was not really an orange. The controls might have been orange controls but the routes to them were not. It is my understanding that on an orange your supposed to have a linear feature to follow and a catching feature. I was very glad that I have been running green most other a-meets this year and therefore made it out of the woods just fine. however i think others who were just starting to run orange or haven't run anything above an orange had a lot of trouble.

Also i really did not like that the most obvious safe route to the first control on Saturday was back through the start call up line. Also it was very easy to make a parallel error on that control. I think everyone i talked to made the same mistake. i wish i scanned the map already but there were two bridges the same distance away from the start and almost all of us ended up going to the wrong one as that was the direction everyone else was running when you picked up the map. I think i lost about 10 minutes on that one control and i think i was one of the faster people on that leg.

So for someone who has run green before, but their age group is orange i think it was a great course! I enjoyed it a lot as it was challenging and i learned a lot from the mistakes i made. however i will say that for a regular orange i think it was too hard.

thank you QOC for a great challenging meet!

I can only speak for the Brown X course. I thought it was a very challenging course, but very interesting. I especially liked the 2nd leg, which for a brown course was quite long and offered a lot of route choice, which unfortunately does not happen often enough on brown courses. Admittedly, there was more green than I would have preferred, but I have run in worse terrain. The course setter's notes made a big deal about trying to stay out of the green, but in some cases, I think it was impossible, and on the 6th leg, the best route choice involved going through a significant chunk of medium green. Was I disappointed? Yes. Was I discouraged? Yes. But will it prevent me from not doing orienteering again? Absolutely not. I learned a lesson on that leg, and that was not to rely on one aspect of orienteering exclusively, that is avoid the green, and instead use everything available to you, the contours, the compass, etc. So I feel it was a worthwhile learing experience. In fact, even after 20 years, I still find I learn something new at every event, and that is one of the big attractions that I find about the sport. Can everything be perfect? Can the map be perfect? Can all of the control points be perfect? Can all of the legs be interesting and challenging? Of course not. But people do the best they can, and considering it is an all volunteer effort and requires immense amounts of time, I am thankful for anyone willing to take the time and effort to host a championship event, and come up with as good a event as happenend last week. So to answer Peter's question, I do not feel that the courses on Saturday should discourage people from coming back to orienteering.

In QOC's defense, the decision was made over a year ago that the courses would be a test of O skill over fun.

The following comments only apply to Bl-G DAY2:
However, having 'tested' parts of Day1 I realized that competitors were going to be very tired and potentially frustrated from day1. So I went for more fun. I also had to contend with many mapping styles on the G-Blue maps. The result was that I placed controls in more visible locations where the error was more likely to be a parallel error, which this terrain is famous for.

On the other hand, I needed to at least partially level the playing field for those who didn't spend 1-3 hours exhausting themselves the day before - hence the uphill start so everyone would be at least a little tired before having to click on the brain.

The blue & reds went back into the overlap area - from Blue Day1. This was the most technical part of the map and wasn't originally in the plan for mapping. I still get lost everytime I'm in it. Pretty scary when you're setting courses. I asked for it to be mapped to increase the technical factor.

Then a change of pace into some bland relatively flat areas. Finally, blue courses may have recognized a portion of the South Fork map just before the very low water creek crossing.

On all 5 courses the climb was excessive. Combined with the more open runable woods, I hoped for more challenges (also known as errors) for those not in shape well enough to think clearly when tired. Several Green runners commented that they were lulled along and made mistakes after the second road crossing when encountering a more technical area.

Brown - White.
The out-of-bounds areas declared by the park nessitated a very quick turnaround of course reworks. Only 2 white legs & 3 yellow legs were permitted by the park out of the 5 courses. On the plus side for some courses, extensive out-of -bounds created many new handrails. On the negative side, Brown could't get too far off route without encountering a well steamered out-of bounds area. The original Brown courses used beautiful, comparatively flat terrain (look under the stripes on the East side of the map).

Brown - I would argue that these were the best courses. I'm hoping someone will scan their map and make comments.

Orange had a single very challenging and long leg with a show stopper catching feature.

Yellow - my philosophy is that w & y should also have route choices. Yellow had several very diverse choices. Speaking for Ted Good, he thought it was way too hard. My thought was it was a championship & they should know up from down and forward from backwards. Nevertheless, there was plenty of room for parallel errors in the cabins near the registration.

In picking though the results, there was not a consistency to the top people from day 1 always remaining at the top for the 2 day total. What was unfortunate is that many people only finished one day or the other. I have seen events where it didn't really matter what you did the second day because the first day results would determine the overall results.

Another question to ponder is - did the sprint event create complacency that Day 1 would be easy and a mistake would only cost seconds?

- CS day2

I can speak about the Blue courses only. It is true that after the sprint model I was afraid from the 'green' level of the map and the sprint courses. But I was pleasantly surprised: the model for the sprint did not represent the sprint vegetation. We had a clean fast forest.
This gave me more confidence that I should have taken to disregard the green areas. As the the different green shade areas were not that clear cut and/or distinct to follow with certainty, try and run around or plan a route choice considering them did not show a clear advantage for me. Hence the results from day one where I managed to run pretty clean race (barring one 7 minute mistake). Through the course on day one I did not for once considered the green as part of my route choice, and I am sure this have affected my speed through the forest and my overal time. And my big mistake was also due to not considering the vegetation factor.
On day two I had a pretty clean day too with about 2 - 3 minutes lost. But on that second day I did made effort and considered the green spots along my course a part of my route choises. That second day I did complete with much better time compared to the best/average times for the day.

So to summarize, I did underestimate the vegetation role for day 1 regarding not only route choice but also the speed I shoud be running with in the green to be able to read the map and follow the compass.

At the same time on day two, when running controls passing only through white forest I felt that part of the challenge that this map represents was missing (don't get me wrong, I did not enjoy the thorny wines wrapping around my neck and legs)

And finally my opinion is that I would not in any case sacrifice difficulty for accessibility to our sport when it comes to the US Champs and especially Blue and Red courses.

I thought the Blue Saturday course was great... after all, we (on the blue course) all ran the same course, and clearly some were able to finish in a great time. Was it easy, heck no! But I think that's what made it great and what I love most about orienteering... the challenge!

As the guy that finished in an embarrassing 5.5 hrs (yes, five and a half hours!), I found it to be no leisurely walk through the park. I've only been an active orienteer since September with exception of a Yellow course I ran back in 2005, so I have never run into this difficult of a course despite having run a few blue classics now. I was half-expecting it would be a tougher race given that it was the US Champs and how new I am to the sport. On other Blue courses I've been able to finish well within the time limits, but this one was much more of a challenge than I've faced before and taught me more than the other courses have. And that is probably the way it should be for this type of event. Separate the pros from the novices (ahem, that would be me- novice!).

Now that I've been through this, I think it has only made me more experienced and forced me to learn some things that I probably wouldn't have otherwise learned if I was still in a comfort zone. In retrospect, I see how I could have saved at least 2 hours on 2 or 3 controls had I done things differently, and I learned firsthand how problems can compound out there. Through making some key mistakes and wasting time I wasted more energy, just to name one of several issues I worked through. Still, I was determined to get every control, finsih the course, and get something out of it. But wow, was I surprised to see how long I was out there!

As for the sprints (my better day), I think threre might be some truth to how it can make you over-confident before the longer more difficult race. But my problem so far has been opposite.... bad sprint (like a mispunch) followed by a better day on the longer course. This time for me it was an interesting change in dynamic.

Overall, I was very impressed with QOC's courses and overall event. My wife (she ran the Yellow) & I really enjoyed it. Memorable, fun and probably a much-needed kick in the pants. My vote for Saturday's Blue is just about right.

While I was not able to attend the event, admittedly being Canadian it was not top priority anyways, I just thought I would offer my general opinion on this topic having thought on it many times before.
Firstly, while most of the people on attack point offer many valuable opinions and insight as well as have the benefit of experience for comparison purposes, the topic of discouragement from future participation was brought up. I like to think most of the posters on attackpoint are already experienced in the sport enough that 1 or 2 weekends would not prevent them from coming to meets. I am sure it has, but some of these questions need to be asked to competitors that attackpoint does not reach.
Also in terms of the line of thinking "championships[and A meets in general] are supposed to be hard", while this is a valid point, for competitive athletes, it only follows to a point. My opinion is that whenever possible, in the case of championships it normally is, there should be more than one version of all the courses, or at least the easier 3 or 4. I think that there should be a stream of courses for those competing within their age or in the competitive regime of the sport; these courses would be the ones that can be permitted to be difficult and testing. But the other set of courses should be for the open categories and recommended for newer orienteers that are looking to run primarily for fun, or who have not yet developed the skills to run the harder courses. The introduction of the easy courses would be ideal to keep the unsure people interested, I would suggest to course designers to focus on fun, and the scenery , route choice for these courses, (ie. if there is a choice for a control beside a wqaterfall, or in a pit, put it on the waterfall) these courses would allow newer people to be eased into the sport and not become discouraged as easily from a tough day out. Also, when I started orienteering, I was only 10 and dependent on my parents for rides to meets, most meets being too far for them to make 2 trips, they would often have the option of either trying a course themselves, or sitting around the start/finish area. When I was orienteering, the only option for new participants was to drop down courses, so for my father to go on course he would be orienteering the easiest course there, he went out on his own maybe once a year, for the 6 years before I could drive myself, and maybe 1 or 2 other times with my little sister. He decided he would rather just wander or jog around the trails at the meet and look at the scenery. Had there been courses of this type, he has said he most likely would become much more involved in the sport. It is possible to make courses easy enough for someone with only the skills they learned in a 30 minute lesson before they went out and take them off trail, streams and lake edges are just as easy to follow, and tend ot be scenic.
Just some thoughts

I think Day 1 Orange was too hard. My wife signs up for F-Orange because she wants a less competitive, easier experience. That usually works out well. On day 1 she couldn't even find the first control and eventually just returned to the start and thence to the finish. Only 2 of 7 F-Orange competitors finished Day 1.

On Green Y we had two controls on thickets. While there were numerous (unmapped) thickets in the vicinity of #5, when I eventually found the bag there was no discernible thicket on the ground. Similarly, I went right by #2 because I was looking for a thicket instead of a bag. Again, no discernible thicket on the ground. Was it too hard? No, I'd say more just unfair. You should be able to count on the feature being visible when you come to it, unless there is appropriate warning. If you can't find the feature when you have already found the control, that implies an inappropriate control location.

"In QOC's defense, the decision was made over a year ago that the courses would be a test of O skill over fun."

The US Champs is often the best attended meet of the year. Competitors plan around it and spend a lot of money and time to come. It ought to be fun. It doesn't need to be tricked up.

I thought the Red Y courses were fine even though I may have inferred otherwise in my log. I personally enjoy running fast in open woods, thus the sprint was by far the best day of the three for me (winning my class didn't hurt either).

Saturday presented a lot of nasty vegetation, and I made a number of costly errors and this terrain can lead you down the path to major errors pretty easily and usually with no quick way to recover. Because of the WRE, RedY on Saturday was also quite a bit longer than normal and my fitness wasn't up to the extra distance coupled with tougher navigation. But all the controls were where they were supposed to be and none, in my opinion, were inappropriate for a championship course.

I did finish the day discouraged with the amount of time I spent out there and also had a pretty long day on Sunday. But again these were due to my errors, not overt unfairness on the courses. On the legs I ran well (which in fact was the majority of them) everything flowed very nicely. But when you make a mistake in this type of terrain, you pay dearly for it. I think a lot of people who can often recover gracefully from minor errors weren't always able to do that this weekend.

As someone else mentioned, the people hanging out and commenting here aren't going to be turned off to the sport by a tough weekend in the woods. I think championship level courses from Brown to Blue should present a challenge. But the newer folks who are on W/Y/O should get an enjoyable course that is well within the ability to finish, even for a championship - we call them beginner and intermediate courses for a reason.

I can't say that I especially enjoyed the thorns on saturday (I'm really a wimp about green stuff), but I did think the Blue course was fair, and the control placements were solid. We didn't have any vegetation feature controls like PG's course though.

There are two aspects to turning people off. The first is what people are probably thinking of, where those comparatively new to the sport will be discouraged from orienteering at all in the future, or at least discouraged from traveling very far from home. But there's also an aspect that affects diehards like me. I'm definitely going to continue orienteering, but there are enough A-meets offered that I don't go to all of them (not any more, at least), and I have to make decisions as to which ones to skip. Some of these decisions are based on the schedule of other things in my life, and some are based on the prominence of the meet (I'm unlikely to miss a US Champs), but some are based on my previous experiences. There are places where I've orienteered that I'm eager to go back to, and others where my feeling is "been there, done that". This can be affected by the course setting. I can think of one meet that I attended where the course really sucked, I found it a completely uninteresting experience, and looking at the map, it wasn't clear how I could have done better in that terrain. Then a couple of years later, the club held a meet there with a better course setter, and though I skipped it, my friends who went said that it was great the second time.

I also don't have an opinion on anything but the Blue course, and although I was really glad when it was over on Saturday, that was a matter of the amount thorny stuff I had gone through, and not really anything about the course setting. There were various little things about the meet that I had quibbles with, but none that would affect my decision to go back. I would, however, be much more inclined to go to a meet at Sunday's venue than Saturday's, but I see that QOC cleverly avoided giving the maps names, so as to not tip us off in the future. :-)

One easy barometer of course appropriateness is to see how many people didn't finish their courses. Was the DNF rate high this weekend?

I was thinking about this on the drive to work. Basically, I decided how happy I was with the courses I got to run this past weekend. They were real. Unlike some other prominent courses I've run over the past year, the control locations were fair, the map good, and 'hangs' appropriate (and not gimicky!) (If there had been gimicky control hangs this weekend I may have quit...)

I stank the place up but the map and course provided enough tools that I could have avoided it.

Anyway, that was blue--the course I ran. I do have to say, though I didn't run the course, that controls I saw on green and brown on Saturday didn't give me as much of a fuzzy feeling.

And I can't say that I found Saturday pleasant at all. After a while fighting that green got a bit old. But very nice way to balance that with nicer stuff Sunday.

So, all in all, my experience was great. In spite of my own poor execution.

I didn't really see much of Saturday's course, so I can't comment specifically on it based on personal experience, just on what little I saw and what I heard. I do think it's quite possible to set very challenging courses that are still fun, and I think fun is important - I wouldn't orienteer if it weren't fun. If someone had told me that Saturday was supposed to be difficult and fun, no problem. If someone had told me that Saturday was supposed to be difficult at the expense of fun, I might have reconsidered the plane tickets and hotel rooms.

I think the answer as to what is appropriate is potentially a little different for WRE courses and for the open classes, even the open technically-difficult classes. I thought M21 Saturday was the best test of orienteering skill I've run all year. I didn't say 'the most fun running in the forest,' although even there I don't really have much to complain about - a lot of the running was a lot of fun. The vegetation did ensure that a few seconds of pain were to be had - particularly the seconds when you had just run into a patch of greenbriar - but that's part of the test of orienteering skill in this terrain, to keep on the line you want to be on despite the vegetation trying to force you away from it. Or at least, to recover quickly when you get off line. I think quick mistake recovery is at a premium in this terrain - you are going to get pushed off line from time to time, and the key is to realize when it's happening and deal with it. Some people complaining about the courses being too difficult are really saying that they are not used to navigating using the ample information available from the map in this terrain.

Now, realistically a difficult course in this terrain is going to require physical fitness and some confidence in your navigation. I think the right tradeoff for these things differs with your competition class, so that if the area was too tough for anyone, it was not M/F-21. Vegetation does get tougher to push through as your running speed or navigational confidence get lower.

But this is the US championships. It's supposed to be hard. Please can we keep it hard? I would hate to see future championships dumbed down. This was fair and challenging (unlike, say, Fallen Leaf Lake in 2003, which had unfair control locations, bingo controls in the middle of nowhere with no way to locate them other than luck). The control locations at least on Blue were fair, real features, visible from within the circle but not from hundreds of meters away. That's how it's supposed to be.

Thanks QOC, and in particular in this thread, thanks Francis and Keg for the courses.

I'll second Charlie's comment about the "thickets" on Saturday's GreenY course. They looked (in the terrain) nothing like other thickets I've seen, and actually some of the area around them seemed more thick than where the flags were hung.

Despite the thickness of the woods, however, if I had not had 18minutes of errors (mostly parallel) on Saturday I would have had a 76 minute run (or better), and I haven't done that in a long time on Green, so I think the difficulty of the rest of the course was appropriate. And I really did enjoy Sunday's GreenY course (thanks, Keg!), and the sprint (thanks, Dave!).

Peter, you're a wimp! I can't speak for green Y, but the greenX courses, both days, were challenging and fair. And, for anyone who belongs in this sport, challenging + fair = fun. The green briar comes with the terrain.

And the yellow courses, which my son ran, were excellent: they tested navigational skills appropriate to that level, not just trail running speed.

Spoken like a true philosopher, Phil.

For 2 of the 3 courses run by my family, I'd echo Phil's perspective (other than calling Peter a wimp). Green X seemed just fine, and Yellow was particularly good because it offered 'micro' route choice decisions but also fall-back to larger terrain clues.

I also agree with Alison, though, about the first control (or two) of the Day 1 Orange. For the average Orange participant, that was a very tough way to start the weekend.

Other than that quibble, it was an excellent event. Thank you, Quantico!

Having only done this sport since '03 - and this weekend having been my first only "A" meet - I don't feel qualified to give courses a rating as "too hard" or not. But I can give you one "newbie's" opinion on whether Saturday's run left me discouraged or thinking about quitting. Hell no!

By the time I was able to start on Red X on Sat., I had lowered my expectations somewhat - I was already tired from the morning of lugging bags of warm-up clothes from the start back to the finish area, and I had seen the thick vegetation in the start triangle and listened to everyone else's discussion all morning of how tough the race would probably be. My personal race plan became: "just finish." When I returned bloody and tired, I was kind of proud of my 2:30 finish time - Woo Hoo!!!

Studying the map post-hoc, I realized I actually could have made fewer mistakes if I had studied the map better, and could have gone around some of those briar patches and impenetrable jungle stuff. What a concept! This lead me to form a new race plan for day 2, which was: (1) buy a magnifying glass for my compass to augment those over-40 eyeballs; and (2) actually pay attention to the green vegetation markings on the map.

With that, I went into Sunday's Red X with slightly higher expectations: "finish, and avoid briars" (and, oh yeah, "try to beat yesterday's time") And that worked too - Woo hoo, again!! Did it in 1:41.

I left the meet very satsified. I had a lot of fun, and felt like I 'd passed a "final exam" in my chosen orienteering "major" for the last 4 years (albeit w/ a low GPA). I wouldn't change a thing with the courses.

Green X: three fine, fair, diverse courses.

I'm glad none of our Saturday controls were on thickets - I never used or looked for one. We never visited GY4 or GY6 but "ditch on side of reentrant" 'looks' okay - was each feature just too small or the green too nasty or both?

On Green X, I was probably one of the few who just had my best US/NA Champs weekends ever in terms of execution and results. Even though a few 'medium' errors kept me out of the top 3 on M55, I had more clean, accurate, and often fast legs than in a long time. 2 or 3 Fri & Sun errors were due to my lack of experience in orienteering at speed (but speed felt great!).

Green Sprint: Due to climb, 20% too long, but excellent variety of challenges: trail jumping; 3 medium length road/straight choices; then "run around the yellow". Green did have 6 of 92 msp - missed a short leg? Why was Sprint Model vegetation so different from Sprint? Course looked easy - being Sprint, people made lots of little errors.

Sat: Classic Model was VERY helpful: "White is reliably mapped and much preferable to Green"; "Cairns are very small". Route plan, check-off features, attack points, bearings, and some pace-counting paid off. Green certainly eliminated any hope for pace for me. Control #1 is mapped 60 m from creek - through ugly green felt further. I left reentrant, had nowhere to go, came back, found it. Terrified of #7 (cairn on flat spur, no attack point - but there was a catching feature), but woods were wide open after slow bee-line through green and control was not hidden by deadfall. Brad gained a minute on me by using white woods on left (riskier approach in my mind). 4 1-minute bobbles.

Sunday: Fast and wide open - Cuivre River (SLOC) terrain! Green X encountered minimal green. Though 7 & 8 were in greenish areas, controls and features seemed fair.

Looks like 4 of about 80 on Green X dnf or msp on Sat & and 4 also on Sun. Thus, Green X Saturday was not a wipe-out course. I got my green briar necklace on Sunday - speed kills!

Thanks!

I did Brown-X both days. The ONLY thing that kept me going on Saturday was the fact that the sun was shining and I could tell myself that as much as this sucked, I was at least getting some exercise. I was not having any fun. I don't think you need to sacrifice fun to make a course appropriately diffcult or fair. I'm not sure #2 and #6 were fair on Saturday's course. While I was delighted to see a long leg (#2) on a Brown course, when standing at the control, I still could not see the feature. #6 was a leg that made little sense to me in that it seemed to require going through some pretty thick green.

On Sunday, I had an absolute blast. A great note to end on. On both days, length and climb might have seemed a bit high for Brown-X, but the climb didn't seemed that bad at tall as it was nicely spread across the course.

Overall, the weekend was one that was much fun and superbly organized by QOC. I don't intend to miss an A-meet hosted by QOC any time soon.

I do hope that we can keep the courses fun and fair, as well as challenging.

I actually prefer the more difficult controls. If legs like 2,4,5,6 were not included I would be far less interested in attending A meets.
I was also awed by the mapping challenge on day 1.
DVOA did a superb job.

Peter, I know of one person who is considering (at least right now) not doing any more of the "heavy" O-stuff cuz of the courses...

I think that Saturday's Red Y course was challenging, and I was relieved when it was over, but it wasn't the type of course that would make me never orienteer again. After all, if I never got beat up by briars and sticks then I would never have the scars to show off. :) And the diversity of orienteering courses and terrain is what makes the sport interesting. It was challenging physically and mentally and it reminded me that I have a lot to work on. That said, if every orienteering course I went on was like Saturday, then I think I would get worn down. But every once in awhile - it was a great challenge! And Sunday was the perfect complement to Saturday.
But, I looked at Saturday's orange course, and I think it was much too difficult, especially #2.

If I can still speak for the newbies (I began orienteering May '03), our sport must make newcomers better aware of the difficulty/challenge/calibre of our championship events.

I began in '03 with one goal, to be ready for the WMOC '05. To prepare, I competed in more than 35 events, including A meets. In the vast majority of those events, I did well.

On race day, I was NOT prepared for the World Masters. Compared with the dozens of courses I had run previously, I was completely overwhelmed by the difficulty of those WMOC courses. At that meet, I quit orienteering outright.

Thanks only to the promotion of sprint orienteering, I would return to try again.

I was not at the US champs. Nevertheless, at the champs the challenge should be greater than the fun. However, how do we warn the newcomers about the degree of challenge?

As a once much better orienteerer (whose past reputation far exceeds her current abilities) that has been out of the orienteering circuit for the past few years I knew that running the WRE Red Y course on Saturday was going to be at the very least a challenge and hopefully not an embarassment. Expecting a challenge from the start, I found the course to be just what I thought it should be and was even pleasantly surprised with my finish result. That said I had plenty of difficulty on the course ( controls 1 and 13 especially) and was very happy when it was over, but the sense of accomplishment I felt at the end made my efforts and exhurtions entirely worth it. In regards to the terrain itself, I think that being out of shape played to my advantage on Sat. because I did not find the green on the course to be nearly as annoying as other competitors because it didn't slow down my already pretty slow pace. In many respects it actually helped me to stay in better contact with my map (which I believe we were given fair warning about).

I am not making an argument for or against the course setting or the choice of terrain. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion and I can only comment on my own courses. It is clear that QOC put a tremendous amount of thought into planning every detail of the entire weekend and I think they executed it wonderfully. I applaud them for a job well done.

I have two more comments to make about orienteering meets in general though. The first is really more of a question. Should FUN be the primary purpose in course designing (that does not include event organizing)? While I don't think any course setter should intentionally put the runners on their courses through hell, I don't think that courses can be designed to be just fun all of the time. As an athlete I know that I derive a great deal of enjoyment from being challenged both physically and mentally in the woods and rising to the occassion. It is the races where I feel that I have truly accomplished something that I remember best. Fun needs to be kept in mind when designing an orienteering course (of course!) but, equally important is that a course challenges all the orienteering skills of each runner in order for that course to have value.

My second commment is that it is far more important for an entire orienteering event (especially A Meets) to be FUN than the courses themselves. If the only point of A Meets were the orienteering than I don't think that attendance would be what it is. Rather I would argue most people come for the entire experience: the socializing, traveling, food (we all know orienteers love to eat), wilderness, hopefully good weather...and of course the orienteering. The quality of the orienterring can significantly add to or detract from the overall experience, but it is not the entire experience. That said, good event planning is as important as good course setting, in my opinion...feel free to disagree.

As a newer O-racer I found the Green-X courses fine. However, I come from adventure racing where the mantra is "You can do it" and retiring is not an option. Finishing and not getting discouraged in general is important to me. I was also at the Canadian Champs in Saskatoon and the courses there were tougher, partially due to rain in that area resulting in lush vegetation, making navigation very difficult. Also the terrain was flat making contour reading a problem.
However for growth of the sport in North America, some change seems required. Runners and triathletes are not apt to become orienteers and are a vast untapped group!

I guess I fall in with Peter's first set of folks who found the course a challenging championship event. As I was moving through the woods on RedY, constantly adjusting my direction and making sure I did not make the small error which would lead to big time losses, I was thinking about how this course would have a large spread in the results and would be a true test of who is the better orienteer. Several times I narrowly averted mistakes but could see how better navigators that I would be able to pick up time, and careless navigators would be lost.
I'll admit that I did not have as much fun on the 2nd half of the course but that was because I hurt my foot and finished limping. The distraction led to some careless navigation and I made the mistakes I had managed to avoid earlier. It also meant I missed out on running Sunday.
If I had come into the meet expecting fast open terrain, I might have felt the courses were to hard, but all the map info I heard was ridge and valley, parallel errors, green, and due to WRE longer than usual. The course was exactly what I expected.

I'm not an elite orienteerer and I have never been nor will I ever be one. Do I love orienteering? Absolutely! Do I want to see orienteering continue to grow? You bet! That is why I spend so much of my time promoting orienteering and working with the juniors. Peter also wants to see orienteering continue to grow and I feel that is why he started this discussion. Peter a wimp? NEVER! Let us not forget who was on that Wheaties Box! Peter and I both are spending a great deal of time working with the teams and promoting the growth of orienteering. Neither of us want to see orienteering lose anyone young or old because they have had it with the courses as they preceive them even if the rest of us feel they were great. IF we don't evaluate ourselves once in a while, we could lose sight of our objective and that being good orienteering for one and all. Not everyone wants to be beat up every time they go out on a course. If this happens they could just say this is not for me anymore and move on. Some would say, we can't please everyone all the time and that is true but we need to try our very best to meet the needs of the majority most of the time.

I couldn't begin to talk about the green, red or blue courses having never done these courses. I have done brown but I didn't this weekend because I'm slow on them and with the responsiblities of the concession stand, attending the board meeting and the senior/junior team meeting with the new coach I didn't have the time this weekend. I did yellow. I had a blast on friday and saturday's courses. There were routine choices and chances to try out new skills for young orienteerers. I really enjoyed talking with the young yellow runners and hearing how they ran the courses and used their skills. I found sunday's course to be work and not fun. I didn't enjoy it at all. Some of the kids felt the same as I did and others had a great time. I felt the streamer section was extremely difficult for an average yellow orienteerer. I helped a number of kids that were having problems in that area. I even came accross one young man so upset that he was crying. I don't think he was having fun and that really concerns me. Will he want to go to an A event again?? Also the expected route choice from #8 to #9 was rather treachous and an accident waiting to happen, thank god it didn't happen. That path along the very edge of the lake was slippery with so much foot traffic. All it would have taken was one trip and fall and a young orienteerer would have been in the lake and it didn't look to be shallow. I know that the course setter stretched a rope through some of the small brushes that were there but as small as a usual yellow runner is they would have been to low for the rope to stop them if they had fallen. I think that #9 should have been forgotten or move higher up away from the lake since there was no safe route available.

It also bothers me to hear Sam say that she felt that saturday's orange course was to difficult. Since she has good experience working with the juniors and was the female coach for JWOC this summer I respect her opinion. As a course setter I know that the orange course it the hardest to set but as the US Junior team leader I want to make sure that we are not discouraging our juniors with courses that are going to defeat them. The jump from yellow to orange is a difficult one to begin with and then being faced with courses that are not really orange level courses make it even harder. I hope that all course setters truly think about exactly who will be running on the white, yellow and orange courses and how important it is to the future of our sport that they come away from the event feeling good about themselves and what they have accomplished and learned while having a good time.

Overall QOC did a great job and it was a wonderful if not tiring weekend. The weather was perfect and I think everyone had a great time. Thank You one and all that made this weekend a great experience for all of us.

Blue Day 1/Day2: Very hard technically.
I liked the green, because it made sure you got some value for navigating more - you could just go straight & fight, but reading the map a lot and aiming for the whiter parts was worth the time. (Unlike the Sprint where aim-and-run was fine.) I did not try to read the vegetation precisely very often, but I read it constantly for a rough feel of 'getting worse'/'getting better' and to swerve this/that-way to get around a bad section.

White Sprint, Day 1 & Day 2 -
Had some White legs, but were generally Yellow level. Probably 3/4 of the controls/legs were Yellow - just off trail on something in the forest, visible if you're looking the right way, or following a ride, or clearing, or looking behind the right one of 7 buildings in a semi-open area. Legs going through fields, etc... I understand this is a US Champs, but that doesn't mean you should set a Yellow course and call it White, just to make it challenging. The White course has specific guidelines and those don't include "extra-challenging-for-special-events".

(As for Brown-Blue, they _are_ supposed to be as challenging as possible, constrained only by fairness. If one person (or two) can nail most or all the controls ala Will H. & Mike Sm. on Blue Day 1 that's a pretty good sign that it's fair... Our question should be: What can we learn from how WIll H. & Mike Smith found all those controls so reliably?)

Thanks QOC for a really well done weekend.

Samantha showed me the Orange course for Day 1. I also think it was too hard, and a route that could go back throught the start is crazy, especially That start area.
I looked for course guidelines for orange, and I must say, if you followed them, a course such as Saturdays could be the result.
Take a look at the USOF maunual.
Some time ago I read or heard a good rule for Orange level courses, the controls should be on what would be attackpoints for a high level course.
This has an appeal to me as it simplifies the criteria for what types of features one uses, and it provides a logical step from the linear navigation techniques emphasized in WY courses to the detailed navigation used on BGRBl courses.
It teaches a technique, rough navigation, whether by compass or map reading, which is critical in harder courses, without adding the burden of fine navigation.

From my perspective running blue and the WRE, QOC did a good job (between the course setter's notes and the model event) of letting us know what to expect. The orienteering was exactly like I thought it would be. I agree with TimGood's (and many others') impressions of the course setting as very challenging and fair. There were ample opportunities to shoot oneself in the foot, and I took a few of them. I also agree with William that it's nice for the more skilled and ambitious of us to have courses that are so very challenging.

I think that what was unusual and perhaps off putting to some was the difficulty of relocating and recovering from errors. Most of the terrain was sparsely structured with prominent and distinctive features, so mistakes could be brutally expensive.

I also agree with boyle that it would be useful to convey to the less experienced orienteers just how tough a course is going to be. It seems like many/most newer orienteers expect a lot more uniformity in their orienteering experience and performance than they get (and I was no exception). It can be very frustrating to encounter a course-map-terrain combination that makes one feel as though one has barely learned anything at all, but new challenges are intrinsic to the sport and a big part of what makes it fun, at least for me.

Comparing Saturday's and Sunday's courses with my idea of what a course should look like, I might offer the following criticisms:
- Saturday's maybe could have had a few more easier legs, to provide changes of speed
- Saturday's maybe could have been a bit less green, but this shouldn't be done at the expense of the best difficult legs
- Both days' could have used a really long route choice leg

These are minor criticisms, and I thought the course setting was quite good, on the whole (at least on Blue). On paper, I agree that Green Y day 1 looked dicey, but I didn't run the course.

To get back to Peter's question: I had fun, except when I blew about 10 minutes on one leg. But making big mistakes at a U.S. Championships race is never fun, even (especially) if the course is easy.

I thought Saturday was a great challenge, and hearing what everyone has to say makes me feel even better about having a clean run - with the exception of folding the map over and running 7 to 9, which did put a dent in my elation when I got to the download. And hearing what everyone has to say about Sunday being easier makes me feel that much worse for having a terrible time with everything on Sunday. Either way, I thought both days were a great challenge and would be happy to run a meet there again.

The Orange course question plays into a debate Jon and I have been having about moving up our new orienteers on the USMA team. There seems to be a wide range of difficulties that one could find on an orange, and we've been unlucky this fall in that the A meets we've gotten to have had harder Orange courses. As a result, few of our new runners have met the criteria we set to move up by December - and we thought that the fast courses at US Champs would have been a great opportunity to get off Orange. Knowing that the Orange course was harder makes us feel a bit better - and shows that some of our cadets on Orange may be picking up the sport faster than we had thought.

(And I'll add that we have no place criticizing anyone on tough Orange courses - we made the cadets run last year's A meet courses as a time trial, and they came back sufficiently impressed by the difficulty of our own Orange courses! ;-)

My thanks to QOC - great meet...not sure I want the 6 hour drive with two screaming kids again any time soon, but I define conquering a challenge as "fun," and this weekend definitely met that criteria!

Of the people I talked with or overheard after saturday the phrase that summed it up was always "Not Fun". Even some of what I would consider some of the better orienteers fell into that category. I heard a lot of discussion on how thick it was and not as much on the "fun" aspects of orienteering like comparing route choices.
I think it is possible to make courses challenging and fun. They shouldn't have to sacrifice one for the other. From what I saw, Saturday's course failed. This is an old argument, do you cater to the top person or to the average. These course catered too much to the top at the exclusion of the average person like me.

For me it definitely fell into the not fun category and had my club not been hosting I probably wouldn't have come back Sunday (which would have been my loss as Sunday was great). This was the first time I was caught with a decision of what to run (my age group, or the WRE). I decided to do the WRE which was a big mistake given the green on the course. Looking at my routes compared to others, I didn't run through more green than anyone else so I guess my tolerance for green is less than others. In fact I think I ran through less green than some of the leaders. The problem I had was that there was little distinction between the white and green woods. Much of the white woods were still pretty trashy. I would have mapped a lot more green than was on the map. I think the better course of action would have been to mostly ignore the green entirely.
I also find it interesting that there isn't any fight on the entire WRE map. I definetly saw some patches of fight and this leads me to believe the green was not acurately mapped. Of course, I certainly wouldn't have wanted to be the one who tried to map the green as I probably wouldn't have done any better.

After Sunday's courses, I heard the normal discussions. People saying that they made mistakes but no one cursing the map or the course setting like on Saturday. If Sunday had been on the same map as Saturday and the courses similar then I think there would be much larger contingent saying they would not come back (At least not to this park, this club, or this course setter).

Part of the question that goes along with Peter's original question was, could the course setting have done a better job of not using as much of the green part of the map. I haven't studied this in depth but believe the answer is yes, at least for blue. One some of the other courses I did see I thought the courses did tend to stay away from the greener parts.

This is not a comment on this particular event as I was not there. (although I competed there in 1992 I think it was) But in general I think a really important thing (besides adhereing to the standards for course design and difficulty etc) is for the course setter and controller to be constantly putting themselves in the shoes of the orienteers who will be running the course and to be critically asking themselves - Would I want to be looking for this control site?; Would I want to be running through this vegetation? Would I be happy with the map in this area? If you are asking yourself that really honestly and critically, and not coming up with 'yes's maybe you should change something? Also to me "Fun" does not necessarily mean easy, but it means Challenging (even 'hard') but in an enjoyable way.

The only problems I had with the Green-X courses were completely of my own doing. They seemed fair to me. In fact, I thought they were terrific courses.

I would say though that the quality of the terrain and mapping for the model events was something that messed with my head a little. On Friday, a trail that I couldn't find in the model for some reason helped me ignore the fact that I didn't find a trail in the sprint, and the size of the boulders on the classic model helped me not look harder for a boulder on the way to #1 on Saturday. But silly me for imagining that such important features might not be mapped well for a U.S. champs.

IMHO, model 'events' should have representative terrain and mapping.

Wyatt wrote:
I liked the green, because it made sure you got some value for navigating more - you could just go straight & fight, but reading the map a lot and aiming for the whiter parts was worth the time...

...If one person (or two) can nail most or all the controls ala Will H. & Mike Sm. on Blue Day 1 that's a pretty good sign that it's fair... Our question should be: What can we learn from how WIll H. & Mike Smith found all those controls so reliably?

Well I don't know about the rest of the US, but here in the Chicago area our woods are filling up with invasive species, most of which have thorns. Whether it is due to Global Warming, or increased international trade bringing in exotic seeds, we're losing the few patches of truly white woods we used to have.

And we're also increasingly banned from some of the most desirable areas: BAOC recently has lost the use of the great Annadel, Big Basin and other state park maps with a "trails-only" policy.

What is the future of our sport if we do not map and use areas such as the Day 1 map at the US Champs? Perhaps more of us will need to adopt Wyatt's positive outlook.

If the future of orienteering were to consist exclusively of thrashing through thorny thickets, I'd find other ways to spend my time.

Well, you just need a new O suit.
http://www.viewimages.com/Search.aspx?mid=57403885

i think you cant find a solution in this discussion. maybe someone likes running through thickets others not. maybe the "thicketman" doesnt like hills... etc etc etc ...

just my 2 cents^^

Not being a botanist or the like, I've often wondered about invasive species. The thinking seems to be, and our experience seems to confirm this--that invasive species are mostrous things: thick, thorny, virulent, that are inexorably taking over our pristine open forests. Does it have to be this way? I imagine a world where we are surrounded by a thicket (of invasive species.) Admittedly, this is a bt of a reductio ad absurdum. But is it absurd? Can invasive species be nice? Anyway, I think "invasive species" is a loaded term.

If you're describing me, I object strongly to that description, j-man.

Hmm... I think the term is unduly pejorative, and I wouldn't want to be insulting. But, look at it another way... invasive species walk in to town kick sand in the face of the resident shrinking violets (how's that for a post-Mailer metaphor?)

Anyway, maybe being an invasive species should be a badge of honor. I, for one, will not insitgate the Beyond Invasive Species Campaign.

Well, purple-loosestrife is an invasive species in New England and other places. It grows along the edges of streams, has no thorns, and is very pretty. It also crowds out the native vegetation that woud otherwise grow on the stream edges.

I think I know what feet would think of those purple-loosestrifes, invasive or not.

Some exotic invasive species create nasty running conditions (honeysuckle, Himalayan blackberry) and others create nice running conditions (English ivy, at least compared to native Seattle-area vegetation).

The predominant green species we encountered at Prince William Forest Park are native: Greenbrier, Mountain Laurel, and American Holly.

"Fun" does not necessarily mean easy, but it means Challenging (even 'hard') but in an enjoyable way.

When course setting, I've long tried for this, many times succeeded (by others' accounts), and sometimes failed miserably (notably this summer's longest Long courses at the COC, which were, well, too long).

I have to say, it is hard setting something that is appropriately challenging for people ranked top 200 in the world, and enjoyable for all. This summer, I seriously misjudged something...the effect of heat?...the effect of the navigational difficulty? (Any opinions, from those who ran those courses, on what made the TPKs what they were?) I had thought that, with such a vast ski trail network, and multiple trail options on almost every leg, the trails would be a bit of a "safety valve" for TPKs, especially for the slowest and least confident...if it got too hard, people would take more trail routes (especially those finding it challenging or tiring). The idea being, the top orienteers would take a mix of technical and trail routes, depending on the risk/reward of each leg's options, making for a significant challlenge for the fastest, but those who were struggling, navigationally or physically, wouldn't be washed out. But winning TPKs were nevertheless around 10 min/km (for the longest courses)...making course 10 way too long for everyone, and course 9 somewhat too long, and leading to "not fun" status.

I wish I had a suggestion for how to always make the courses "just right". (Yes, it's definitely important to try to do so. No one wants "not fun" courses, least of all the course setter (who, as reward, vicariously experiences the fun or "not fun" of hundreds of participants in the finish ambience).) I've course set for a long, long time, and have gotten the course difficulty and "fun factor" right many times, but still managed to err badly. Recommendations welcome.

Thick vegetation in Saskatchewan was the dominant factor from my point of view, mostly as it created low visibility, but in places also woods that were difficult to penetrate (the temperature was probably in second place). That sort of sand terrain is very challenging to navigate though if it's open, and all that much harder when you can't see very far. There was a section of the map up in the northwest that was absolutely excellent, detailed but clean, and things would have been very different if there had been more terrain like that.

There was a section of the map up in the northwest that was absolutely excellent, detailed but clean

Well... with electronic punching now, course setters always have the option of disregarding the rest of the map, and setting a Butterfly or other compact course design to take advantage of only the best parts of the map.

Not in the case of this area in Saskatchewan, where said area of the maps was about 3km straight-line from the only road access.

And obviously I have different tastes to others: I thought the vegetation made it a lot of fun in Saskatchewan too.

The vegetation definitely made it very hard, though that doesn't necessarily mean not fun. The unmapped green due to recent blowdowns did cut down on the fun somewhat, but there wasn't much the organizers could do about that, other than reroute the courses from the worst of it (which they did). I also had troubles distinguishing yellow from green on the map, which made things a little extra tough, but that's my own personal colorblindness problem.

I think the problem that arises for hard courses, is that it is harder for those not in the top echelon. In a sprint, if you don't have a lot of endurance trainiing, it will not hurt you much. If the ground has deadfall, running more slowly is not as bad as having to resort to a walk. If the woods are thick, then inprecise navigation will create bigger errors (harder to relocate). Hot weather hurts those in poorer condition than those well trainined. The faster runner will be out there less, and will keep running, albeit slowere. A middle of packer will become more dehydrated and have to walk.
Harder courses just spread the field more.
Looked at another way, if the winning time should be 1 hour, and the time limit is 3 1/2, what happens when the winner takes 90- minutes?

Well your event could P.O. many, many people, as the Chicago Marathon did last month.

With over 40 000 registered, the race was canceled because of heat after about 3 hours. Thousands of runners were forcibly pushed off the race course and threatened with arrest by Chicago's finest, for even thinking about continuing their race.

As an occasional meet director, I've read through some of the hundreds of complaints in the link above, and tried to imagine how I would react or respond. I'm glad that in orienteering, we rarely see such rage...but rather, rational A/P discussion after the event, from which we all can benefit.

In defense of the Saturday Course setter for Green Y, it is a big challenge to set 10 courses on terrain where there are not enough distinct control points. I am always wary of vegetation edges being used as control points, but sometimes that is all that you have got, so you make the best of it.

I had my day ruined by a 10 minute error on 6. (It was tucked among the bushes. I ran by it without seeing the marker and incorrectly assumed I was in the wrong reentrant system. )

Still I generally think a good job was done by the course setter with what he had to work with.

Lots of comments since I first raised the issue.

Let me toss out a couple of other things.

The first is from the Chicago A meet, the Big Blues Ramble, a couple of weeks before the US Champs. Chicago seems to have a reputation for somewhat nasty vegetation, and the terrain for Sunday was said to be especially nasty. So it was a really pleasant surprise to see the course I was given (the Red course, M45). Pleasant, because it did a great job of using the best woods and the best terrain, and a great job of giving you options to avoid the really bad stuff. Yes, that meant there was a good bit of trail running, and even a couple of sections along a road, but that was much better than the alternative. At least in my opinion. Though I would guess that some would look at the course and say, Boring.

The second is from the US Relay Champs in September, where I was the course setter. I very specifically set the courses so that no controls were in the green, no controls were hard to see, and there was almost no need at all to go through any thick vegetation. This was a relay and therefore maybe a special circumstance -- relays that drag out forever are not good. I wanted to err on the side of the times being too quick rather than too slow. I saw no reason to go out of my way to make it "nasty hard."

Here's the Red part 1, Red part 2, and one of the Green courses.

And people still made mistakes, and the best still won.

One thing I did that was quite different from the Quantico event was use common controls for different courses. Partly because it made life easier for me, fewer controls to put out. But also because I thought people would enjoy having common controls, give you more to talk about afterwards with someone not on your course. And in areas with not so many good control locations, it meant not having to use one that might be shaky.

But who knows what's best -- it seems from the comments that there was a lot more fondness for tough courses than I would have imagined. So I guess I should apologize for one thing we did at the relays -- all courses had leg 9-10 on the Red course, and we took a pair of pruning shears and went out in advance and cleared a path through the briers.... :-)

To be fair, the vegetation in Chicago is significantly worse than at Prince William Forest. I know - I ran through a lot of it in both places... And there is a fairness issue with the style of course-setting in Chicago ('I know how long it's going to take if I go around on this trail, but the medium green ahead on the straight route could be horrible or it could be ok. Shall I gamble?') which I think is less appropriate for a national championships. The course setting in Virginia was (in my opinion at least) more fair than on Sunday in Chicago. But both were good uses of the terrain available and I enjoyed both of them.

FWIW, I would have enjoyed a less thorny experience on Sat at the US champs. Its my personal opinion that courses can be fair, difficult, championship/WRE quality, etc., without being miserable, but what do I know?

On thing that bothers me is when the best route is thru the green. It becomes a test of who's more macho (and forgive me for not knowing the feminine adjectival of that one :-)), and I'm not conviced that that is the skill to be tested.

I also feel the suggestion that diffuse patches of greenbriar in areas of bland relief be navigated around is a bit untenable, but perhaps that is my lack of skill showing. (veg boundaries yes, on that map, I'm not convinced).

In any case, my lack of enjoyment of Saturday's course takes nothing away from the fine event QOC put on and the excellent organization. It does bring into question, however, if this is how a sport's champion is determined, is this the right sport for me?

Interestingly, I have a somewhat opposite feeling about the veg. at the two events. The thorniness was more pervasive at Chicago than the greenbrier VA. However, in Chicago I was left with only spotted legs, whereas in VA my legs, midsection, arms and neck were a bit mauled. On the other hand, the bloody scratches from VA are mostly gone, while I just removed from my leg what is I hope is the very last thorn tip from Chicago. But overall, aside from that one blue day 2 leg from C2 to C3, I found the Chicago veg. pretty easy to deal with.

After having read most of this thread, I still don't really understand the issue. The nature of our sport, and one of the things that makes it great, is that it is different every single time you go out. I think this variety is great, as long as fairness is preserved, which I think it was at the US Champs. Sure, sometimes the day will seem hard because of bloodthirsty vegetation, other times because of nasty climbs, other times still because of thin air at high altitude. However, that's orienteering, and these are all parts of the challenges we face in the sport. Knowing how to deal with these challenges (again, as long as they are the same for every competitor) is what separates the best from everyone else. I failed at dealing with the vegetation on Saturday of the US Champs, but others didn't. This doesn't mean the course was too hard or unfair, just means that others were better prepared for it.
Having said that, if orienteering races were only ever held in green, thick areas, it probably wouldn't be too much fun. The organizers were wise to have the second day stand in fine contrast to the first one for an excellent, and varied, weekend of orienteering.

Re-reading PG's original post that started this discussion, I should point out that my note above was a response only to the comments about the vegetation. The second issue he brought up - controls set on questionable features in the green - is a problem, and one that adds to the unfairness factor of the event. Unfortunately, in my opinion, there were a few such controls on Saturday of the US Champs, which is a shame.

Knowing how to deal with these challenges (again, as long as they are the same for every competitor) is what separates the best from everyone else.

Knowing how to deal with laying on a bed of nails, if it is the same bed for every person, is also fair and is also what would seperate champions from wannabes in that endeavor. That doesn't mean I personally would want to drive 7 hours round trip to do it, but as a live and let live sort of person, certainly would not begrudge others who wished to do so.

PG also asked at the top of the thread:


Meaning, how many people got so discouraged, or annoyed, or pissed off, or just weren't having any fun at all, and as a result may be asking themselves, Why am I doing this? And maybe in the future, they do it a lot less. And maybe they also won't be so eager to tell their friends what a great sport it is.


PG also specifically mentions the veg at the top of his question.

I'm one of those people. As I said, to each is own. Its not an "issue", just a question PG asked, and I answered it frankly. If people enjoy running thru greenbriar, go for it. That doesn't mean I feel the need to.

And, aside from one control, I had a very good run. Its not about difficulty, its not about fairness, its not about how good was your run, it is about the primal thrill of running thru terrain, and I am personally convinced that excessive greenbriar is not part of that joy, but that is just personal taste.

I remain convinced, back to PGs question, that if that is how champions are determined, recruitment among "runners" and other athletes will be a difficult sell. Just my opinion. I'm not in any way suggesting the sport be "dumbed down", changed, etc. for the purpose of recruitment, but if recuitment/retention is a goal, I would suggest running people thru greenbriar is not a wise path to that goal.

JMHO.

Randy's HO summed up my feelings on the matter quite well, and most specifically, his last two paragraphs.

I disagree. Orienteering is not just enjoyable because of the 'primal thrill of running thru terrain' - it's also about the primal thrill of 'finding the control right where you thought it was going to be'. That thrill is greater if the course is more difficult. I agree that greenbriar doesn't add much to the enjoyment, but low-visibility is important sometimes to make otherwise-easy terrain like Prince William more difficult, and to get it unfortunately requires having some vegetation to push through. If east coast forests were like Colorado, orienteering would be much less interesting to me. Even Harriman would be much improved by a judicious planting of thick white pines over much of the map. ;)

low-visibility is important sometimes to make otherwise-easy terrain ... more difficult, and to get it unfortunately requires having some vegetation to push through

Hemlock can actually make for low visibility but good runnability and fairly low scratchiness. At Pawtuckaway, there are places where you can't see a 15m high boulder (that's not a typo or exaggeration) from 50m. I used to find that I could run around the hemlocks without pushing through (typically), but they blocked the view.

So I guess I should apologize for one thing we did at the relays -- [...] we took a pair of pruning shears and went out in advance and cleared a path through the briers.... :-)

At the COCs, we actually took out shears, handsaws, axes and a chainsaw (which ran through all its fuel)...about a dozen people in total. But that was due to the blowdown from a very recent storm...if not a tornado, something pretty severe, because one area 400m by 100m (with some tree trunks bigger than one could hug) was totally knocked down into one big pick-up-sticks pile that took a course setter 45 minutes to cross (the narrow way). We got most of the trails cleared or passable in the greater Middle distance terrain, but the team with the chainsaw just stopped and looked at one trail near the big blowdown. I've wondered since how many of the trails the ski club managed to get open for this winter. (It would be astounding if they got them all open, but those SK folks are pretty astounding.)

Tornado, downburst, whatever. I saw that flattened area, and it was clearly an extreme weather event, doesn't matter what you call it. Not all tornadoes are spinning funnels, despite the name.

It's impressive what you can do with heavy equipment, and that's what I'd want to use for clearing those trails.

They were pretty wary of allowing vehicles out there, due to the thin soil over sand, but heavy equipment might be the only feasible way. Don't piss off the weather gods before your event, I've learned the hard way.

feet wrote: "Even Harriman would be much improved by a judicious planting of thick white pines over much of the map. ;)"

I can do nothing but vehemently disagree that Harriman could be improved at all,certainly not as suggested above.

Feet, I share your love of the white pine - certainly not an "invasive species". Seque: An excellent early history of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan (aka 'home'), is "When White Pine was King"

The subtile should be, "And now it's Furniture" :)

Harriman could be improved by introducing an organism that kills blueberry bushes into the area.

One thing to note about the Quantico WRE was that the courses were planned almost a year in advance, then submitted to the park for environmental approval (which resulted in a few changes). I test ran the WRE courses in February, and found them significantly more open and enjoyable than when I returned in November for the actual event. At the time, I was assured that most leaves would be down by November, and that made a tremendous difference. For one thing, the greenbrier was the only thing green in the forest and you could see it in advance, to both avoid it and use it for navigation. At the meet in November, it was nearly impossible to see it in advance, resulting in many more lacerations. I think this was a miscalculation, and gives a good reason to plan WRE courses more than a year in advance, and do test running exactly a year ahead to assess conditions.
I liked the map in February, although I wasn't (and still am not) a super fan of the non-standard mottled green symbol. I could live with it & learn to use it, but introducing non-standard symbols on a WRE map, even with model areas open, is a little iffy. But, although we discussed the symbol, I also did not push for QOC to remove / change it.
Between February and November, many changes were made to the map adjusting vegetation boundaries to show openings and passages, etc. I think a couple areas in particular were greatly improved by this work. There was also a lot of micro-detail added (eg the many directional rootstocks). As I indicated in the controller's notes at the meet, many of these were small and not particularly visible at running speed. I think this was again probably due to mapping being done in February and the leaves still being up in November - not to any fault of the mapper.
One problem PG encountered that I did not was the controls on vegetation features. There were not any controls on vegetation features on the WRE courses, and importantly, there were not any controls on vegetation features in the model area. This is something that should have been considered. My guess is that the model area was planned specifically to represent the WRE courses and the fact that other courses had some different types of control locations got overlooked. A couple vegetation controls in the model area could have given competitors an opportunity to see that the thick areas and boundaries might be less visible and distinct than the map made them appear. Possibly some of the vegetation controls should even have been adjusted when course setters realized that leaves were still going to be a big factor, but its not fair for me to comment since I didn't actually visit any of them, and its also worth noting that last-minute changes can be risky and may be as likely to introduce unanticipated problems as to solve known ones.

As noted in earlier posts, we can't control the weather ... but we did look at averages, and we've orienteered plenty in PWF over the years. We originally planned to have the meet earlier (in October) but after considering the "Saturday vegetation", we moved it to early November, when past history indicated we'd still probably get mild enough temperatures and weather (ie not yet too rainy or cold), yet with most of the leaves off in the areas with the most problematic vegetation, as Mike indicated.

Now for what happened - and keep in mind that deciduous vegetation depends on having cooler weather to hasten the leaf senescence process.

Historical average for the 31 days in October: Hi 64.7 degrees F, Lo 46.0.

Actual average for October 2007: Hi 72.7, Lo 54.6.

So while we did get temperate weather for the event, the leaves had not dropped off to the extent they normally do by this time of year, presumably due to warmer nights (and days).

Good news: Fall color was still on display.
Bad news: see comments on green veggies in this thread!

Harriman could be improved by introducing an organism that kills blueberry bushes into the area.

An Orienteer, bunch of them, 'Oringen' bunch of them
:)

A quick look at the results shows that there were 4 F-16s who took over 2 hours to get around on Saturday, and one M-16 who was out over 3 hours. There is no way that these courses are appropriate or helpful in encouraging youngsters to our sport. I nearly dragged the family down from Connecticut for this event but looking at the results I would have had two very upset children to contend with afterwards who would never want to go orienteering again. Are there no guidelines for planning children's courses? A sensible target winning time and a last place time that is not more than ~double that (barring the occasional person who will always distort things at either end of the results spectrum) are pre-requisites for events that are going to attract people from great distances. Unless you want to frighten folk off, that is. And from where I am, I don't see that many people in our sport that we can afford to frighten people off. For those wanting more of a "challenge" there's always the next course up!

Hmmm... It's hard to say that a course is too hard based on just the last few finishers. Are they experienced orange level orienteers? Do they usually perform better on orange? I see a few F-16s who finished in just over an hour and several M-16s who finished in well under an hour. You'd really have to look at past results or rankings and compare that to predicted time on the course to know what was going on. After all, anyone can have a bad day and take 3 hours out there (or not finish at all...) on pretty much any course.

The orange course may very well have been too difficult, but just looking at at a few finish times doesn't give you the whole story.

Orange is also used by people for whom it is not their "A" course, but who are looking for moderate difficulty and an enjoyable, non-competitive experience. Out of 7 F-orange people, 5 DNFed on Saturday. That is not a good record. If we had 70% DNF rates on other courses I'm sure the unhappiness would have been widespread.

gives a good reason to plan WRE courses more than a year in advance, and do test running exactly a year ahead to assess conditions

I have to disagree with what has become a standard course setting measuring stick. Don Bayly and I both visited the WMOC 2005 Qualifier 1 area a year before the event, and the vegetation was not even vaguely similar to that of the day of the event. Vegetation varies hugely year to year, and even a sudden storm can make a vast difference to runnability. I think that the "one year ahead" look leads to a lot of false confidence. If the competitors had orienteered in the WMOC Q1 area a year earlier, it would have been an unrecognizably different experience...runnability, visibility, even navigation (as affected by the former). I've heard the "area was totally different a year ago" lament so many times that, having experienced it myself, I think that a meaningful year-on-year difference may be the norm (except perhaps in arid terrain, or certain special terrains).

In hindsight, I think that it's important to adjust your courses just before the event, based on conditions, and be wary of historical norms and prior year trial runs. This is in stark contrast to the general wisdom on the matter, so I guess I'm stirring the pot by saying it.