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Brindley 5th february 2006 District Event |
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Brindley 5th february 2006 District Event |
Results.
Controllers Comments.
Planners Comments Organisers Comments.
First of all, thanks for all the nice comments on the day and subsequently on Nopesport(!) about the courses. Makes all the effort worthwhile.
I have now planned 4 times on Brindley Heath in the last 5 years. It has got progressively faster and less technically difficult as the trees have been felled. Hopefully, however, the courses were sufficiently testing with some variety of leg lengths and changes of direction to make you need to think all the way round. The longest 2 courses had the advantage of Hednesford Camp with more trees, more contours and hence more variety. Oh, and a few more brambles- sorry!
The tree-fellers were at work right up until the Friday before the event- as you could tell if you went anywhere near the felled area. It did mean some changes to 3 of the courses a week before the event. Many thanks to Doug for his dedication in surveying and remapping (frequently!) over the last month.
A few proper apologies:
1. to those affected by the lack of a Finish Banner at the Brown/Blue Finish. We only had one Finish banner and it was across the road at the main Finish, used by the 6 shorter courses. However, I thought the runners on the 2 longer course would prefer the contrast of Brindley Heath along with the slightly more taxing Hednesford Camp. Rather than have you cross a busy road twice, I decided to have a second finish next to the Car Park. Once we realised some of the early starters were having a problem spotting the Finish control (although it was out in the open and the correct distance from the last control!) we put a banner there. It didn't actually say Finish on it, but it seemed to do the trick.
2. to the 4 people on the Red course who didn't punch the Finish control so were disqualified on the day- but hopefully reinstated in the final results. Suspect this was partly due to the written control descriptions which only listed the controls, with no "navigate to the finish". This is a quirk on OCAD8 but will, I am told, be better on OCAD9. There was similarly no "navigate to finish" on white & yellow courses but no-one there was similarly affected.
3. for the maps not having the course name on them; not spotted by me or the controller till it was pointed out to us.
4. We ran out of Blue maps so had to recycle maps. This shouldn't happen as the number of maps printed equals the number of control description sheets available for those at Registration to sell. The "missing" maps may be due to cold fingers picking up 2 maps stuck together and not noticing till taken out of the map bag at home. Thanks to those who gave up their map on the day.
Thanks to Steve for his usual relaxed controlling, to Tom for his efficient and imperturbable organising and to all those who helped me take in or put out controls- Doug, Andy, Mark, Chris, Iain, Steve & Mrs Marlton, my optician.
Ian
How sweet smelling was the pile of wood chippings which provided the
backdrop in the centre of the car park!! I was worried during the week as
the pile grew each day, however, our Car Park team had it all under control.
Thanks to all the Chaser's Team Leaders and Helpers for making the
Organiser's life so easy. Thanks, too, to Ian and Steve for planning and
controlling such a good event. Most importantly, thank you all for coming
when there were several other events taking place elsewhere. There were many
positive comments about our event even down to the quality of the red/white
taping in the emergency car park ;o)
Finally, thanks to the local kids who pushed over the toilets as they left
the area, the odour of the chemicals nearly overpowered the pine scent from
'that' heap in the car park.
Lost property: one yellow/black GAP fleece top size L/G. Please contact the
organiser.
Tom Roach
Brown: 82.20; Blue: 74.00; Green: 58.56; Lt Green: 54.57; Red: 90.25;
Orange: 42.51; Yellow: 27.45; White: 62.12.