This situation looks like a statisticians dream – you can read a lot into the results – some relevant – a lot not that relevant!
Whilst all these observations are interesting and a bit of fun (and if they motivate people onto better things, so much the better): the important thing is to try to put them into some sort of context.
I think that local knowledge is certainly useful in an area like the quarry, although that is not the main influence on success. The area has been well used over the years, but vegetation has not been constant and the recent event used a number of new control sites. Correct map reading and terrain interpretation therefore very much required! The apparent domination of the King (Queen?) of the quarry listing by SO members could be due to several reasons, not least that SO is a Sussex based club, taking part in a Sussex league of events. Of the 54 participants on the Sprint course, 4 represented non-SO clubs and 4 were IND(ependant). INDs are most likely to be relative novices so unlikely to be heading a results table. This leaves less than 10% non-SO, and 10% of 16 is one or two people => 1 out of 16 is entirely expected.
The following stat is quite interesting too – with 50 odd people setting off over the course of an hour, all running at different speeds, then a bit of congestion is inevitable. If you decide your route, look up and see someone else is already executing the same route choice, what are you expected to do – deliberately go somewhere else?! It is never easy to pull away from a pack in an area with good visibility and on a course with short legs. Personally, I don’t think that I would read to much into the drag index stuff. The important thing to remember is that you are very unlikely to actually win by following – by definition, there is someone always ahead of you – so no real gain.
I join with Rob and Nick to applaud the results of a number of the junior SO runners – attention to the right detail at the right time is obviously what they were doing (and better than many of the “old-hands” too!).
SO have discussed about aiming to get all of the Sprint-O area maps produced with ISSOM 2007 cartography (Sprint-O style and map symbols) – this is a longer term aim for areas that have most recently been mapped as general purpose O areas to ISOM 2000. The most recent map for Lancing is for a permanent course covering a larger area, and ISOM 2000 is more relevant to that. There is a reasonable amount of work involved in converting from one mapping standard to the other. We shall see how the season progresses as to how far SO have got in this respect.
NB my most important lesson of the day was: that I need to read the control descriptions with a bit more detail. A quick look for control number and the type of feature (my usual style!) was not always enough. There were at least two controls where I could’ve saved a few more seconds by checking where on the feature the control would be.
My thanks to all concerned for the event – very enjoyable!
Peter
