From comments I heard just after the event most of you thoroughly enjoyed Kevinβs challenging courses.
Unless you were an early starter you will probably be unaware that two of our controls were stolen sometime between 8.45am when they were checked and about 10.30am when they were discovered to be missing. The control sites were approximately 50 meters apart and the Green, Blue and Brown courses all visited one of them.
Fortunately the prompt action of two of our own club runners who gave up their runs to report the problem meant that replacements were soon in place. However a few runners on each of the three courses were affected and were clearly disadvantaged.
What if anything should be done with the results?
While no solution would be totally fair we believe that the best course of action is to take out the legs either side of the missing control, number 8 on the Green, number 6 on the Blue and number 5 on the Brown. The percentage removed on these courses is relatively small.
We apologise to the few competitors who were affected by this vandalism but hopefully everyone enjoyed the event in the Winter sunshine.
The event will be put on Routegadget later.
Appologies for the registration queues, one of our computers had been checked yesterday and decided not to work today.
We were also having problems with reading ecards due to the cold.
If you want to discuss your results, please contact enquiries at southampton-orienteers dot org dot uk
Planners Notes:
Firstly thank you to all who came and took part on Sunday and to all the SOC helpers and Forest team.
The biggest problem for a planner on the Busketts map is how to get the competitors out into the open forest the best part of the map. Restricted to parking at Ashurst Camp site means that the Start and Finish are either in the heart of the plantation or participants have a long walk to reach the edge of the plantation.
Several visits to the forest back in October/November revealed that the plantation rides were already very wet with some of the minor rides quite overgrown. Junior courses would have been quite restricted as to where they could go and would have been very uninspiring.
I felt that the best answer was to have a long walk to the Start and back from the Finish. This opened up the opportunity to have all the courses make use of the open forest.
The White and Yellow courses were quite adventurous using Smiley faces to lead competitors round courses with a few different control sites other than the usual Track/Path Junctions.
All the senior courses went out into the open forest where navigational choices were combined with a chance for fast running and some technical challenges.
Apologies to the early runners on Green, Blue & Brown who were affected by the two missing controls. They were replaced as quickly as possible and I hope it did not detract too much from your runs.
I hope you all enjoyed the event and felt the long walks worthwhile.
Kevin Bracher Planner