Discussion: Interesting

For our 2600 pts we did 74km in 20.5hrs.

Maybe there is something to be said for a couple of hours sleep and some hot food. This course, with numerous entry and exit routes around the hash house, made that option viable.

Still a great effort BTW.

You have come a loooooooong way in a very short time. Top effort.

I agree with MrR btw. Refreshing the batteries and eating real food at night is usually a good option. I'd be prepared to guess that you could have scored the same points with a 2 hr break at the HH.

I assume your floorless effort refers to river crossings?

What was the bush like? I only have horrible memories of Kirup. Nothing much written about the terrain in your log.

Terrain I thought was actually pretty much, nothing stands out as a 'I had to fight' effort. infact most was very ice would have no concerns doing another event in the area.

mmm yes but keep in mind for the amount of time we lost dicking around with non clean nav and rewalking ground we would have comfortably been in the 3000's had we got it right - we made a lot of unforced errors. I am still divided on the go to sleep option - I think as you said possible to go a little harder and get a good score and yes you got a great score for having a break but I do not know if I would have pulled off the same as you?! maybe maybe not - might have to try a 24 with a break in the middle see what its like. one things for sure if you want to win, your not sleeping. maybe I am just in training ;) just need to find another 1.5km/hr in the legs and keep my nav clean.

Either that or wait until all the top teams are away - New Norcia anyone?

I've come top 5 with an 11 hour break in the middle. Works for me :)
I will also probably be at New Norcia, but would need some very strong convincing to take it seriously.

yeah and people used to win it on 70km :P

new norcia should be interesting but: Dave might be doing it with Shane so could be quite a strong combo there and I haven't even started to consider doing a competitive tilt on it after this 24 and qld 24 might just go boot around the camp fire... well see.

I've done about 85km in 12 hours on the course in a 24hr, measured in straight lines on the map, not with all the little squiggles that a GPS picks up. Yes, it was farmland, but no need to be rude ;)
Been over 60km in 12 hour rogaines many times (not that I rogaine often)

New Norcia is a great area. Really open for the most part, but some deceptively deep and steep gullies that slows things down a little more than you might think. Hopefully it won't crack 30 degrees this time...

rude? i am not sure how you interpreted my comment it wasn't intended to be rude.

Out of interest fletch when you did the 85 - im sure that pt you top 10 if not top 5 but do you think you had another 50-60km in the bag in the next 12 hours to take you to first?

Yeah I am still trying to break the 60 in 12 :( 4.5 average seems to be my best atm which I am please with for this race as I only dropped to about 4.1 even though adding 12hrs.

incidentally if our nav had have been cleaner the straight line course we had measured was 103km and was >4000 so I would have imagine we would have ended in 3500ish for the same distance and time - but we lost a lot of time and distance in our mistakes. at which stage all these relative comments being made are put into perspective and it also highlights how badder night we had out there.

Maps still arguably too large by 20-30% then for these events where the 'usual' top 5 pairs don't show up?

Not sure about that Tooms having a bigger map leads to more course variety - sure extra work for setters but if no one can clear it and there's multiple competitive routes definitely makes for more interesting result particularly at the top end especially if those others were present

Don't have to have a big map to make people go further though.

Imagine a rectangle that is 2km x 1km with two controls (A & B) on the opposite ends of a diagonal. Straight line between them is 2.24km.

Alternatively, put controls on each of the corners of the rectangle and also on the midpoints of the longer sides (6 in total) and the shortest straightline between A & B getting everything else in the rectangle is now 5km.

Yeah I know that but setting to not complete or atleast have some difference in the points that are dropped is rare I think this was achieved on the weekend which makes it really interesting

GB - more *controls* should result in more distance, but that's subject to the law of diminishing returns. Unfortunately it also decreases the navigational complexity, possibly in inverse to the distance?

So if you had 100 controls, adding 10 controls in the same total area makes for a marginal increase in distance - since you're probably going close to those controls anyway - but significantly decreases the navigational difficulty since you now have up to 20 shorter legs.

I thought about this a bit when planning TNFG, but came to the conclusion that shoving the same number of controls in half the area would make for a very different style of event.

Bryce - it might have been Murphy's Mayhem state champs in 2001, or that might have been one where we were out for 14 hours total - I forget. Either way we scored 3060 to winners 3680 or something similar, so I doubt that we needed an extra 50km. We also weren't ever intending on staying out at night, so who knows how mud further we could have gone. Would we need to go that much further now? Probably. Could we - probably not back then, and not at the moment either. If we started that hard and kept going through the night, we'd be a lot slower on the second morning.

The 'rude' bit was the winning in 70km comment. Dunno how far you'd have to go to find that (unless it was diabolically thick). Gary Carroll and co were pretty good (not at Wil and Andre level, but very consistent and kept going all night. ( I wasn't offended)

I recall on a number of occasions people telling em not that long ago 70-80km was sufficient to win a 24 maybe I have been misinformed but I have been under the impression its only been more recently that consistent longer distances have been coming out.

Yes I only have now to really compare - if we took what effort you are talking about and put it into today's sense sure probably still would come out with a good result but I would love to know when the last time someone slept and won was with any of the 'elite' teams present.

I dunno about the sleeping part, but depending on the course setting, two loops can definitely be better than one if it lets you get a good feed, potentially change of clothes etc at the HH. Lets you carry less, deal with any 'emergencies' and get back out on course and moving more efficiently, as long as it doesn't add too much to your total distance. Ask Wil - he'll probably be able to tell you who, when, what even, what they scored, how much they won by etc :)

ha - fair enough. - yes I am not opposed to a loop and using the hh as a change station - I am opposed to the sleep part. if you have down time for 2 hrs I feel its a wasted 2 hours. if you can construct a route that is efficient and allows you to loop through hh and means you don't need to carry as much and thus move quicker - I think that's just good strategy - we did discuss it very briefly but agreed not to go back on this occasion. best posts where out far and we stayed out for them.

Andy and I came back for a feed in the 2002 Aus champs when we cleared the course but came second. I think it might have cost us the win but Andy thinks he wouldn't have survived without stopping to eat. The food just made me feel sick and I hardly ate after the stop. We spent about as much time at HH as we got beaten by and added several km.
I think anyone who wins with a sleep could have won by more without the sleep.

Just another plug for New Norcia since I haven't done enough yet - it'll have a different setting style: lots of short legs but also longer legs to get between the short ones that may or may not require you to think outside of 'straight line'. Lots of controls (probably too many) but total distance <110km last time I measured (which was before we finalised the course). Wil and I planned 107km last time at NN to clear the course and fell short but that was because we wasted an hour on a misplaced control that we never ended up getting credited with and we had to drop two others to compensate.

Totally, Juffy. I agree that too many controls jammed in decreases the nav difficulty, but a bit of both can be achieved, especially for 12hr courses. Some jammed together, some spread out, create some real pockets of interest and the challenge of joining them together.

BTW - the 2015 May 12hr may soon have a venue. Fingers crossed.

Rod Jurich did 104km or similar at talbots last stand to win many years ago. On a tiny map by today's broadsheet standards.

Very flat, open terrain too. Almost like farmland if I recall correctly. 104km is still a bloody long way none the less.

I must admit that I'm glad we no longer have the 2.5 - 3 km legs between pretty much all controls. I like being able to pick up 3 - 5 controls in an hour.

Tooms - I think broadsheets have been around for a long time. Most of my 80's/90's maps are A3 or bigger.

Bryce, what were the tracks like through the pines? Looking at the aerials, it could have MTBO potential. Probably a bit far from Perth but we've got nothing left close to Perth now (except Kalamunda Circuit expansion if we're allowed to use it).

Mmm very reasonable there was a lot of unmarked so I think you could find some more ground out there... I think could be used

Just looked at TBT. No wonder you couldn't find #73. The trace shows you didn't even cross the creek that must have been a good 500m south of it!

Haha....yeah, I was fiddling with the map last night, using Bryce's trace to check alignment. He was asking me about various controls, and the convo went something like:

Bryce: So what about #73?
Me: ....did you even go for it?
Bryce: That bad, huh?

yeah we made a right fuck up of that one! someone's already points out we should have gone 74 then 51 and would have been easier shorter and better... silly mistakes!

Incidentally I recall that once we hit the road we realised we started a few steps past the road aborted and went direct to water.

ShotRat, yes I know - but a lot of those maps had 6 inch margins with drawings of flowers, early settlers, massive legends too. Boyagin Rock was a big one I recall - farmland again. I'm just keeping Brycec entertained really.