Discussion: Aussie NOL Formats

What about getting some new formats in the NOL over the next few years?
- Ultra long
- Night, ie making the midweek NOL run after the Aust Schools into a night event.
- Night sprint around urban area to reduce the advantage of those with big lights
- Different relays, ie mixed relay (causes problems with seperate NOL comps though) or sprint relay?
- Score event (i wouldn't be for it but another option)
- I've always thought multi scale race would be cool, run on 1:5000, 10 000 and 15 000 scales during different loops in race

Just throwing some ideas out there!

sounds like a good weekend of racing!

how about a mixed sprint relay (world games style) with one from each team (junior/senior/men/women)

NOL seems a bit constrained by the many things it has to do.... Take out the Easter format, the selection races and the Oz Champs format.... what is left to play with? And how many times are people able or prepared to travel?

Personally, I'd like a big relay in the dark... not just for NOL. In fact, a format that forces mixed teams (sex and age).

Each year we seem to get enthused by Tiomila and Jukola, but that is as far as it gets.
A few years ago before I found out about Tiomila and Jukola I organised a day time club level mixed team relay. The concept was popular with the participants. I limited the team numbers to 3-5, with individuals able to run multiple legs, as a team determined. Rules allowed flexibility as to who ran what, and I must confess that some orienteers were very creative in their interpretation of the rules.

However in the context of a NOL competition, it's hard enough to get numbers for the 3 person Australian Relays teams. Christmas 5 Days might be an option? Mixed state/gender teams with NOL points shared according to team composition?

A 5 person+ relay in Australian would be good, especially in the model of Tio, Jukola with some nights. Unfortunately, in my opinion anyway, its not possible/worthwhile.

We are constrained by the number of NOL races possible but we can play with the ones we already have, ie my suggestion of mid-week NOL changed to the night.

We normally have two non-championship rounds, while one is generally trials the other is just another weekend of racing. This year being the exception with JWOC having seperate trials. Making the 'other' NOL weekend a bit interesting with some new formats could maybe encourage people to make the effort to go?

Better then two boring races on one of the most boring areas in Aust. - see QLD NOLS 2006. thank god for Bushrangers/Pinestars test to get some more entries!

2008 is quite likely to include a Eureka Challenge weekend with one individual race and one relay.

Will it be a NOL w/e?
What will the Individual race be? A classic?
Hopefully if so it will be 'real' classic length or why not an ultra long with say 120min winning time for men, equivalent for women (sorry ignorant as to what it should be, 100min?).
Eureka has been a trend setter in the past....

2007 will see the Eureka weekend and also a weekend of sprint races (heat and final saturday) based in canberra straight after Easter including a multi-loop, multi-scale race (sunday). Sorry lazydave but its not going to be ultralong.

I like the idea of having an ultralong race but not really as part of the NOL at least not initially. Why not hold a NSW (or ACT) ultralong champs in August/September?

as candyman has said the 2008 series is about to be announced. it is much more mixed up.

regarding some of the formats (multi-leg relays and night stuff) we shouldnt hold them - cos no-one turns up. its never worthwhile. just look at the NSW night champs results. there wasnt even 1 female in 21A!

i'm a huge fan of the club based jukola idea, (mostly cause i reckon MFR would win). say 2m+2w elites 1m+1w jnr and 1m+ 1w >50. the challenge would be to create as much atmosphere as possible so people don't get too bored hanging around watching.
probably a state club relays.
i know the idea has been around a while. it would be really exciting day.

ohoc would win mate.

one day i will organise an event it it will actually be promoted and it will be great. until then, since we struggle to even get 100 people to an event we would be better off discussing how to promote the sport.

im so shitty we waste so much money on high performance all the time whilst the sport struggles along just surviving

NSW used to hold Long Champs but it died off. It actually holds a very good memory, the time Jules and i ran together and he was stuffed at the end so i dropped him! it was in 1999 though....

If it wasn't a NOL it would be hard to get people to show i think

Heard Lotty talking to someone at the Night Champs that this would be the last NSW Night Champs....

Why would holding a night/long cost more money then another NOL Fat Rat?
Yeah state Night events arent too popular but holding a Night NOL might get some entries, thats why i suggest night sprint, i think it would have a good amount of interest.
The W21A would have had an entrant if Mace showed up :)

because other nol races survive because there are public events held in conjunction lazydave

why do you think we have so much trouble just getting states or clubs to volunteer to hold a nol event? i do like your suggestions though, im just generally frustrated with orienteering. i just wish we were in a different position where we could mix it up more without these kinds of concerns

If its going to be night etc, would there be more chance of making an event self-supporting if it also appealed to rogainers and AR types. For a few years we have mused about a feature race that Bendigo could hold but not many other locations. It could be a navigation race around Bendigo. In forest most of the way. About 80 k. Team or individual. Still musing.

well lets stop holding NOLs altogether

bring back the high-o and market it to adventure racers, has to be worthwhile for a club/state association to do that!

Sensible idea. The map is bad, the navigation facile. Might appeal to the AR crowd. Just needs Parks approval, which I seem to remember is still withheld after fires.. Maybe I'm not up with the latestnews.
Maybe there is something can be done to improve the maps in the meantime.

good onya lazydave, some good suggestions. An Ultra long would be great, and i like the sound of a night sprint too. Running at night can make a simple area so much more difficult. The midweek post schools champs race would be a good one because the terrain is generally pretty easy.
The return of the Eureka challenge would be good. It was always an exciting and sometime innovative start to the season. The High-O was great too. But AROC 24/50hr race is starting to use the Australia Day long weekend.

Probably the only way to get a night event (jukola big) happening in Australia is with ppl numbers increasing. As orienteering is never the answer in terms of numbers, perhaps an event that combines hard orienteering legs with easier street, topo legs should be devised, that requires a mixed crowd to enter a succesfull team.
So teams have "specialists" ranging from adventure racers/rogainers for the easy legs and orienteers for the hard ones. In a way, you squeeze more orienteering into AROC, which already catches a much more "mainstream" bunch. Lure them into the hard navigation and we are all laughing all the way to the bank....ehem, sorry, the future.

nice Jose. When are we organising it?

Variety is great, but I don't think is compatible with NOL which pretty much has to stick with accepted formats. As several have said, number of participants are needed for any novel format to be successful... and then there are two masters to serve: the betterment of orienteering; and attracting AR / rogaining/ MTBO types to a big fun event and compromise the nav. a bit.
We're already spread ever-thinner with MTB-O, Sprint-O, Metro-O, plus normal bush orienteering and yet numbers/members are not strong. Same-old, same-old issues unfortunately!

NSW used to have the Budkavle, an all night relay, and we also organised night relays in WA back in the 80s. These events were fun at the time, but were a lot of work to put on, and lost out in the end to ever-busier calendars. We don't have the numbers or the volunteers to resurrect them, and I think the NOL should be all about building on Hanny's success to improve our WOC/JWOC performance - to get us up to the top 6 ranked nations, and win some more titles. Therefore NOL should stick with the 4 WOC disciplines.

dunno if this has already been brought up but vic used to have a blodstitet race. interstate people came to run, it was usually a mass start i think. NOL races played part in killing these races like eu chalenge and blodslitet- could make some of the nol races back into this blodslitet format.
ben ohoc better not be abbreviated olkaparinga hills o club, im surprised i could remember that name.

NOL should remain focussed on the WOC or World Games disciplines. We actually do a pretty good job at these, compared to where we were in the early 90s. They must also be run in conjunction with public events to create some atmosphere.

Additional elite series races on top of the NOL don't seem to work. You can only travel so much in Australia, and this year not even elites from the home states travelled to the 'elite' races in ACT and NSW.

We all love talking about event formats, but we shouldn't waste too much energy on this. The format is not what attracts people - it is the event promotion, which we do quite poorly. We already have enough events and formats, but we don't market them properly. For example, Victoria has a Du-O. What is that, you ask? Well it's basically an adventure race with foot and mtb navigation, but no-one would ever know that, certainly not the adventure racing community.
We also have blodslitet, 3hr maxi score events, winter classic, relays, sprints, micros, middles, park, street, bush, mtbo etc etc. The problem is that all of these get lost in the 200+ events per year on the calendar. We also have lots of participants, but they are spread very thin.
We need to put more focus on the feature events and do a better job at promotion so that larger numbers turn up to these feature events.

As for mass participation relays, the only way I see this working is if it appeals to the masses. In Australia, the best chance of success is in Melbourne's park & street orienteering series where there are regularly 400+ competitors each week. I know that it is not real orienteering, but it's very popular and suits many people. A club based relay could include legs from A, B, C, D and PW categories, and in addition a couple of detailed park/sprint legs for the real orienteers.

Comments for Bruce, but might as well go to the full readership.


Du-O. There is another group has booked the You Yangs for a Duo event same weekend as our orienteering Du-O. I don't know who they are as I'm not organising. Could be a simple run-ride using a similar descriptive name. Could be interesting.

Park/Street in Melbourne. This format appeals to a wider section of the community than does bush-o.
We are averaging 100 entries at our Tuesday Night Street-Os. I find this quite remarkable as it is really just running around the streets in the dark! It's the same bunch of street-o tragics attending, but I have to admit that I've been two consecutive weeks now and enjoyed both runs.
There is good scope for running mixed participation relays at urban areas like Macedon where maps are available for both street and bush formats.
The rogainer type of orienteer (prefers longer duration events and doesn't require complex navigation) will travel but a large number of the Melbourne street orienteers limit their travel to local events. 40-45% of our Western Series entries are from walkers; granted this is significantly higher than for the other series. Even within our region we notice that people won't travel.

Bruce/Oxoman,

I agree entriely with what you guys have said. I think if we had a couple of mass participation relays at all (replacing traditional events) that are well marketed, with appropriate formats for orienteering-similarish groups and a bit of bling, people would travel as far as Macedon or Belanglo (for Sydney/Canberra).

We just need a group of people to go forth and do it. In reality though, I can't see it happening before 2009 in sydney/canberra (cos thats when I reckon I might have time to do it) possibly earlier in Melbourne if MFR have something to do with it.

> Du-O. There is another group has booked the You Yangs
> for a Duo event same weekend as our orienteering Du-O. I
> don't know who they are as I'm not organising. Could be
> simple run-ride using a similar descriptive name. Could be
> interesting.
Sounds more like an administrative snafu to me. They booked you twice.

Re Go forth and multiply....(events that is)
There are many many events in Victoria. We follow a Maoist cultural revolution strategy... let a thousand flowers blossom. Then we see which wither. If you want an event that isn't out there, then YOU have to organise it. Then there is a very personal calculus between the amount of effort it took and the joy or otherwise you received from the organisation effort. If it is on the negative side of that calculus, the event will die. Which raises an interesting question. Why would you organise events, I can see four obvious segments of organisers

1. I have to organise it because its on the calendar and some bastard wrote our club in and no-one else will do it.
This organiser will probably make sure the event doesn't turn up on the fixture any time soon. WMOC 2002.

2. We want to make lots of money so we need to get lots of people.
If a big profit isn't made, event dies.
AROC?

3. I like going to this sort of event, so if I do my turn others will do their turn and we all get a chance to compete.
If others don't volunteer, this person will eventually burn out.

4. I do it because i enjoy other people enjoying the ingenuity I put into this event.
If no positive feedback from competitors, then organiser will stop. Negative feedback will speed the process. I plead guilty with my maze-O efforts at Xmas break up. Probably also Ironman.

Messages from this.
If you like the event format:
1 Make an effort to turn up as often as possible.
2. Volunteer to organise an event yourself on a regular basis.
3. If you enjoyed it, make sure the organiser knows.
4. If you didn't like something, be diplomatic. Shut up in the finish chute in particular.

http://trixseries.com/index.php?option=com_content...
this is your competitor at you yangs

Mrs Prez and I have an idea stored up for a fun relay at the year-end Vic Sprint/Presentations day. It will, however, be short, park based and the rules will handicap any ideas of MFR domination! The main inovation we have thought up is a way to monitor team progress.
As a few writers have pointed out (and I agree with much of Bruce and Pensioner's thoughts) even in the StreetO community club spirit can be pretty fickle if it means having to show up just to represent the club. The idea of a relay mixing competitors from StreetO courses A B C D & PW has never really looked good even on paper. My prefered idea is a Blodslitet that provides a real challenge other than just a longer event than normal. A relay through the night sounds like fun but would need a massive base to draw competitors and organisers from unless someone decided to do one on a bare-bones basis just for the tragics.
As for different map scales, the DROC Duo last Sunday had three different maps and three different scales. Of itself, this factor wasn't all that exciting as each map was different and changing from run to ride is a bigger adjustment than just a map scale change.
Will check the clash referred to above. Our event is run or ride whilst Triathlon Vic has a run-ride-run event on the same day and place! They start earlier than we usually do and they charge $50!! for a single entry.

> this is your competitor at you yangs
Note the entry fees - with ref to fell's Discussion thread about Canberra entry fees.

Bruce wrote
...Melbourne's park & street orienteering series where there are regularly 400+ competitors each week. I know that it is not real orienteering...

And Prez wrote that Triathlon Vic charge (and presumably get) $50 per entry.

So who's in the real world here?

Do we still wear analogue watches? Shoot pictures onto film?

> Do we still wear analogue watches? Shoot pictures onto film?

The point being....?

Yes we do still use analogue watches and photographic film, along with analogue compasses, and maps printed on conventional (non-digital) paper.
Anyone for "Catching Features"?

However, point taken.