Discussion: US Champs middle distance map

With my routes:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/nikolaynachev/4736466...

couple of poor legs there, but probably terrain is neat

I would like to thank the Cascade and EWOC organizers for three days of fun courses in excellent terrain.

I would like extend an offer of a free supply of these to the organizers of each U.S. A event I attend, enough pieces for all competitors. I spend far more than the $30 or so that this quantity costs per competition day, and this will alleviate my and everyone else's frustration. I understand that some organizers expect the competitors to provide their own map cases, but sadly this is against USOF Rules of Competition. In order to help the organizers comply with the Rules, I am extending this offer.

It was a great weekend (although a bit hot!). Thanks to all the organizers. The sprint was especially fun.

Vlad, thanks for the comments and the constructive criticism. I really appreciate it when someone offers a proposed solution to a problem, rather than just complaining about it.

And here are links to all courses from the Middle Champs at Moses Lake. I'll probably replace these links with a link to RouteGadget when it becomes available. [removed]

Quick! Take those down before someone complains about copyright! =P

I really enjoyed all of the courses too! The variety of terrain was awesome.

KU - My Long map was pretty much destroyed during my run. Will you be posting those as well?

The offer is of course valid given reasonable advance notice—I won't be hauling a box of plastic cases of an assortment of sizes with me, but will be happy to ship a week in advance or so.

@ Bill - I don't have easy access to the Long map (it's owned by EWOC, and I'm in COC), but I'll see what I can do. (Mine got mostly destroyed, too).

Long, middle and sprint maps for M21:

http://www.bestik.cz/mapy/index.php?user=bestik

Looks like some interesting terrain.

I was surprised that the sprint map wasn't drawn to the sprint standards.

Spike, it's actually against the rules to use ISSOM for non-urban sanctioned sprints in the US. In saying so, I am not taking a position on whether this is wise, merely reporting what the rules say:

MAP: Sprints use map Scale- 1: 4,000 or 1: 5,000 with a proportional contour interval, typically 2.5m, or other intervals if explicitly approved by Sanctioning Committee. ISSOM (Sprint mapping) standards are encouraged for denser, urbanized settings. Otherwise ISOM standards shall be used.

Some of the other comments on the linked site are also off: for example, he complains about course length for F21 but a quick estimation suggests that given the field, the winning time was about right.

That's the firs time I've heard of that rule - this is unbelievable! What a ridiculous and unnecessary rule! The sprint races were CREATED for countries like the US for two reasons. (1) increase visibility of the sport (2) introduce the sport to new athletes and allow them to 'fast track' through the learning curve of forest orienteering.

The US cross country ski system has realized and embraced this with athlese like Kris Freeman. It is unbelievable to me that the USOF has not realized this yet.

By rejecting sprint races - not using the right symbol set, not setting good courses, not allowing athletes with sprint potential to attend WOC - the USOF is completely shooting themselves in the foot.

What rule are you talking about MrPither?

It would seem that the USOF rules are congruent with the spirit of MrPither's complaint, at least insofar as I understand it.

If the idea is to encourage sprint racing, shouldn't you lower the barriers to putting on such races? Or, I suppose you are thinking long-term, not short term, with the implication that the US mapping community will learn ISSOM standards and invest in making sprint-specific maps to host sprints. (Rather than encouraging sprints to be held wherever possible, with the lower hurdle of existing maps and familiar standards.)

Although if you are hosting sprints in terrain which is not suitable for sprints anyway, and not setting courses which are appropriate, does it matter if it is ISSOM or not?

What seems strange is that the rule Feet references appears to prohibit the use of ISSOM for some sprints. Seems like an easy fix:

MAP: Sprints use map Scale- 1: 4,000 or 1: 5,000 with a proportional contour interval, typically 2.5m, or other intervals if explicitly approved by Sanctioning Committee. ISSOM (Sprint mapping) standards are encouraged for denser, urbanized settings. Otherwise ISOM standards MAY be used.

I'd like to think that the Sanctioning committee wouldn't prohibit an organizer from using ISSOM for a non-urban sprint even under the current rule. I'd also like to think that a competitor wouldn't protest.

For this particular sprint this past Monday, I'm not sure how different the map would have looked with ISSOM standards. I should point out that I'm not that familiar with the ISSOM personally, but from what I know it seems the maps would have been about the same. The paths in the competition area were nearly all narrow, the contours were contours, the rocks were rocks, and the forest was forest. The biggest differences in the two mapping norms occur in urban areas, right? I really can't see how this particular competition would have been significantly affected, and certainly not any degree that would have re-ordered the results lists.

In ISSOM, the buildings would be grey, and the trails (probably) brown. So the only black would be the rock, which might help distinguish lines of cliffs from trails. On the other hand, a contouring brown trail can look mighty like a brown contour, which wouldn't help. Neither would have helped me :(.

Must admit, like j-man, I prefer sprints with less chance of getting hurt.

Well, the small issue with U.S. Sprint Champs was that trails were a bit hard to distinguish from passable cliffs. Not if you slowed down, but if you tried to go at a decent elite-like competitive speed, it'd be hard to perceive truly-on-the-fly, I think. The reason was that a lot of the (bike) trails went parallel to the slope and along the cliffs, and the cliffs came in rows.

It was with a similar issue in mind that ISSOM was developed; in a typical Scandinavian forest terrain with cliffs you'd get few trails, so the confusion between the similar symbols is not an issue. As you push the sport into the more developed land closer to towns, you get a lot of black on the map from various edge lines/step changes/buildings, therefore the brown-fill trail in ISSOM. At Camp Sekane the confusion stemmed not from the degree of urbanization but from the bike paths; same remedy would have been adequate.

There is nothing inherenty meritorious about using black lines for both cliffs and trails; both are man-generated symbols. There's no point getting snotty at those people who can't tell the two at speed and therefore need to slow down, ha-ha. A challenge that seems artificial is rarely accepted well by the masses; witness Micr-O.

I think ISSOM could have been successfully used for this Sprint. From BAOC's experience, it'd have taken 2–3 days to convert the map and go over it to make sure there were no feature encroachments. This time would have been well spent.

How about scaling the course right?
Those lines are way to thin. I'm sitting at my computer and I can't see where the lines are going - good luck to someone racing flat out!

Hey guys,

I did some research into the USOF Sprint rules that feet quoted:

MAP: Sprints use map Scale- 1: 4,000 or 1: 5,000 with a proportional contour interval, typically 2.5m, or other intervals if explicitly approved by Sanctioning Committee. ISSOM (Sprint mapping) standards are encouraged for denser, urbanized settings. Otherwise ISOM standards shall be used.

I dug through the board meeting minutes and discovered a few things. It appears that this language went into the rules with a 2009/2010 re-write by the rules committee? (Steve Shannonhouse Chair?). Anyways, the language above first appears in a discussion in the Jan 17, 2009 Board Meeting Minutes.

At this meeting Steve proposed a DRAFT version of language to (re)define course formats. Read his text in the minutes for background, but it basically says "The APPLICATION of this language is not obvious. Simply adopting this language to the current USOF rules appears to be extremely difficult, requiring many additional changes, deletions, and reference notes, in numerous sections, to avoid conflicts and redundancies." among other things. It also appears that the board gave approval for these changes without requiring a vote:

5. Status of rules for 2009/2010 with voting as necessary – Steve Shannonhouse
Steve Shannonhouse discussed the terminology and distinction of Formats and Disciplines. Formats as written will not require voting.

Ok, no problem with all of this. It seems to me that Steve put forth some draft text, probably no one really noticed, and this ISOM wording slipped through by accident. I don't believe that this was the original intent. Going back in time through the Board Meeting minutes, I ran across the approval of the preceding Sprint format rules, in the Nov 12, 2005 Board Meeting Minutes (I added the color emphasis below):

---

Proposed USOF Rules for Sprint Format

Suggested as new section 24.7 (but may be renumbered at Rules committee discretion)

24.7 Sprint Course events

24.7.1 Sprint events shall be designed for very high speeds. Finding the controls should not be the challenge, rather the ability to choose and complete the best route to them, requiring full concentration throughout the race.

24.7.2 Maps for Sprint events will be at 1:5,000 or 1:4,000 scale and may be of runnable park, streets or forest. Maps should endeavor to meet the specifications of ISSOM.

24.7.3 The start interval for sprints will be a minimum of 30 seconds.

24.7.4 The time limit for sprints will be 1 hour

24.7.5 Course/Class structure requirements for general sprints

24.7.5.1 Sprints may have one or more courses with the standard USOF classes spread reasonably among the courses offered. When offering the standard class structure, the sprint format must be available to all advanced level classes. Courses for White/Yellow/Orange may be sprint or an alternate format, clearly stated in the event announcement.

24.7.5.2 Elite events may be organized. In this case all results will be reported as M-21+ or F-21+.

24.7.5.3 Winning time for each sprint course offered will be 12-15 minutes based on the classes assigned to that course. Care should be taken that the slower classes on a course are properly experiencing the sprint format. With wide variance of classes on one course, this may necessitate keeping the winning times at the fast end of the range.

24.7.5.4 The US Sprint Championships will consist of a minimum of three sprint format courses: 1) Red/Blue 2) Green/Brown/Orange 3) Yellow/White

---

Clare Durand made the proposal, and it was unanimously approved. There is no mention of an ISOM requirement for woods sprints, simply "try to use ISSOM if possible." I believe that this is still the *intent* of the USOF rules, and the "ISOM shall be used" wording in the current USOF rules is simply an oversight of the draft language during the re-write. So like spike says, we just need to get in a fix for that unintentional wording. Perhaps just changing the word *shall* to the word *may*.

eddie, you may be right that it's an accident, and I personally agree that 'may' would be an improvement over 'shall.' However, I know that two prominent US mappers at least have the opinion that the IOF screwed up with the application of ISSOM to forest sprints, so the OUSA rule may well be deliberate.

I'll email Steve to ask whether he knows what's going on.

I'll email Steve to ask whether he knows what's going on.

On this topic in particular, or in general?

zing

From Eddie's link above - the actual language in the proposal from 2009 is ISSOM standards shall be encouraged, especially in denser built up settings, otherwise ISOM standards shall apply. This clearly says something different than what eventually was put in the rules. The intent of this sentence should not have changed. The board never approved any language which implies that ISSOM is not allowed to be used for woods sprints. As originally drafted the intent is that ISSOM should be used whenever possible, but if ISSOM is not used than ISOM must be (i.e. you can't use a map that isn't to at least one of these standards).

I stopped reading in the middle of the notes, but I would say thx for organizing and hosting the event!
It was fun to run first two days!
As to sprint, you failed big time! map was not readable (for example trails was thicker than cliffs)! You should admite that and improve it next time!
Looking forward to participate in dunes again!

Any chance RouteGadget will be up soon? I keep checking San Diego Orienteering because that's where Cascade maps have been in the past.