in: TBorish; TBorish > 2008-04-26;
| # Posted 2008-04-27 13:07:13 | |
| kupackman: | 1.35 km, with the long leg being super route-choicey. I thought this leg was on the orange side, as I think the fastest route was through some cross-country (on the map at least, the terrain had some thorny stuff where the white should have been).
I managed to make a boneheaded error on one, running the long way around (100 meters more!) which including running up a hill. Very fun and interesting class! I knew about the legs first, controls second motto, and the mixing up the tempo/leg length going in, but after today, I understand a much bigger (and better) picture of what's going on with a good course. You have any plans to set any courses soon? |
| # Posted 2008-04-27 15:03:12 | |
| ebone: | I wish I could've attended the workshop. It's fun to learn about and think about course setting and different orienteering challenges and the skills one meets them with. Taking the course setter's point of view makes one a better orienteer, because it trains one to notice the easy and difficult parts of each leg and anticipate the most likely errors (in order to make a special effort to avoid them).
I forgot about the class until I got back from organizing my trail run, and I saw the big group and heard someone say my name as I stumbled up to my office half asleep. Hey, I think there are openings for assistant course setter and vetter for PNWOF 2009 / US Middle Champs and WRE. Maybe one of the graduates of Dave's class would like to take this on. I should ask Dave who all was there who might be interested. |
| # Posted 2008-04-27 23:50:10 | |
| TBorish: | Patrick, did you hear how the runners of course 3 liked it (not that they were able to run any of the interesting legs, though)?
I had never heard about planning the legs, not the controls, although that makes perfect sense. And I knew you were supposed to mix up the tempo/leg length, but I had never thought about some of the other things, like how the shape of the course affects it and how every leg should have a purpose or make the orienteers use a particular technique. I just hadn't thought about it much before, since most of what I knew was things I had realized I liked/disliked while running courses. And it is really helpful to think from the course setters standpoint about where to find hard controls. I think Holly and I are going to design courses for the bog slog next year since that's about the only time we'll definitely be in town. So, COC is hosting PNWOF '09? Will it be up in Cle Elum? |
| # Posted 2008-04-28 05:07:04 | |
| kupackman: | Re: Course #3. I talked to Jon Church about it, and he really liked what he was able to do. The first long leg that was cut short (the north-south one), he tried to go as far as he could before the construction. He said that it got pretty marshy in there.
Re: Course design. My first time setting anything was with my scout troop (in 2004) was before I started orienteering in earnest, so for those I didn't even think about anything other than control locations. I think what's helped me the most with course setting is talking to my OK clubmates about it. One of them writes an orienteering blog updated daily, and he talks about what makes a course fun, and he's mentioned course shape, mixing up tempo and direction change. Before I finalized my UW courses for 12/2006, I talked with the OK people about the campus event they put on the month before, and talked to them a lot about how to do mine. I learned a lot from them. And once you've set a course, it changes your perspective as a competitor. Dave is definitely right about that. And once you've set a course, you have even a better understanding of what makes a good course and what doesn't. And still, for as much as I thought I knew (from only designing one real course ever), I learned so much more yesterday. If all of COC's course setters had this training, I think we'd see consistently better courses! Re: Bog Slog. Awesome! You'll have to remember to force some route choice through, you know, the sloppy parts of the map. ;-) Re: PNWOF '09. It'll be at Salmon La Sac (just east of Cle Elum) on a brand new spankin' map. Eric organized a mini-rogaine there last summer, and there's some pretty sweet terrain there. As Eric said, Middle Champs and WRE, and I think that's about as far as we've (the COC board) has planned. |
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