Results for DVO District Event, Carsington Patures, 19/02/2006

Sunday 17:45 provisional results uploaded

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Organisers Comments

When I went to see the farmer who owned the fields on Saturday afternoon to talk through the final arrangements, it was bright and sunny with no wind.
It was t-shirt weather and the boats on Carsington reservoir, in the distance, looked becalmed. What a change a day makes!!

On Sunday, at first light, as I met up with the Planners and Controller, it was freezing and we couldn't see further than one hundred metres. We had been asked by the farmer to use a different field to the one intended and this caused some minor problems but I think everyone managed to cope.

I'd like to thank all my helpers including, and especially, four non orienteers who took on tasks. Helpers are key to the success of any event and when competitors are polite and thank them where appropriate, it can make a huge impact. The mist dispersed at around 12.30 so we were able to clear everything away in reasonable weather. The turnout on the day was higher than expected. Thank you for attending and I trust your navigation skills were tested.

Stuart Swalwell

Planner's Comments

Looking at the results after the event the times on most courses suggest we weren't too far out in the length and technical challenge. For the longer courses, in particular, this was aided by the fog, which made navigation much more challenging. Unfortunately it also made the shorter, easier courses more challenging than we had envisaged. Carsington is a difficult place to put these shorter courses on because of the confusing array of extra paths created by the 4x4s that use the area, with the fog it became a nightmare. So our apologies, particularly to any novices who got lost on these 'easy' courses and please don't let it put you off trying again. We hadn't intended the finish to be in the middle of the car park but events overtook us but as far as we could see it didn't cause most runners a problem. Finally an apology to those of you who arrived fairly late to find on a couple of courses you needed to copy up your map and for some even the control descriptions. We never in our wildest dreams expected over 300 runners at Carsington, but it was great to see so many and I hope you all enjoyed your runs despite the weather (or for some, maybe because of it).

An after thought, and another apology, this time to the early light green and blue runners. A number of runners found a stake, and numbered tag at its foot, in roughly the area they'd expect 173 (though not I'd like to point out on the right feature - but then, who of us having struggled through the fog over the moor is going to question that), so assumed the control box had gone missing. Perhaps you'd like to know what actually happened. It seems that some time between said stake being put out late Saturday afternoon and us visiting it to attach the control box, a person or persons unknown moved the stake and the tag to another location some 80 meters away. Finding it missing and both planners and controller having searched the immediate area for as long as we could afford, we replaced it with another stake and attached the control box. Only when runners came in reporting the missing box were we able to go out and remove it. Lastly, thank you to our controller (and helper) for their help and patience, including getting a number of the controls in, which was much appreciated and way above and beyond the call of duty and also to Stuart, the organiser, who was a pleasure to work with and handled the problems thrown at him on the day with calm and efficiency.