Discussion: Follow up Course Critique
in: DVOA Mount Penn - Antietam (Nov 30, 2014 - Reading, PA, US)
Dec 1, 2014 2:56 PM
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I am going to post some notes here, primarily for personal use, on how some legs shaped up. Your comments are welcome-I am not easily offended, but what was "good", and comments on your favorite legs, is always welcome.
I am going to wait for Routegadget, but a couple notes from what I gathered so far:
Good:
Red 5-6: It sounds like this one allowed for some good woods running. The Red course was designed around this leg. More later.
Fruit Farm- I designed the courses to have opportunities to run through the Fruit Farm: a new area, a break from rocky underfooting, and spectator galore.
"Issues":
Green 2-3: Originally was going to use the stone wall west side, but the length of the stone wall is not very distinct and is ruined(blends in w/ stony ground). The lone boulder more SE would have been good, but I cannot make sense of the stony ground/2 boulders/reentrant feature. Most people took the indistinct path, which I saw as pretty indistinct near the control.. might not the case with the snow, making the safe route too optimal.
Red 13-14: I think there is another deer path in this area. This one was supposed to be straight forward to avoid an accute angle.
Last 2 legs on Orange/Brown/Green: Several people didn't understand my reasoning for putting streamers out of the second to last leg. I think the lesson here is just to not use the blue/red/white flags. I failed to field check this short leg, and tried to fix it with some (unread?) course notes, had it written down as a note for the starter, and the clue sheet showed 2 streamered legs: oh well.
An interesting note- when I was setting controls in the snow, the "very indistinct paths" showed deer prints, but not bike treads.
Map: I liked using the offset print map because it is high quality and it saves the club $200/event. Only issue I see is the 2 indistinct paths in that area SW of Fruit Farm.. and the actual Fruit Farm was never field checked (was private).
I am going to wait for Routegadget, but a couple notes from what I gathered so far:
Good:
Red 5-6: It sounds like this one allowed for some good woods running. The Red course was designed around this leg. More later.
Fruit Farm- I designed the courses to have opportunities to run through the Fruit Farm: a new area, a break from rocky underfooting, and spectator galore.
"Issues":
Green 2-3: Originally was going to use the stone wall west side, but the length of the stone wall is not very distinct and is ruined(blends in w/ stony ground). The lone boulder more SE would have been good, but I cannot make sense of the stony ground/2 boulders/reentrant feature. Most people took the indistinct path, which I saw as pretty indistinct near the control.. might not the case with the snow, making the safe route too optimal.
Red 13-14: I think there is another deer path in this area. This one was supposed to be straight forward to avoid an accute angle.
Last 2 legs on Orange/Brown/Green: Several people didn't understand my reasoning for putting streamers out of the second to last leg. I think the lesson here is just to not use the blue/red/white flags. I failed to field check this short leg, and tried to fix it with some (unread?) course notes, had it written down as a note for the starter, and the clue sheet showed 2 streamered legs: oh well.
An interesting note- when I was setting controls in the snow, the "very indistinct paths" showed deer prints, but not bike treads.
Map: I liked using the offset print map because it is high quality and it saves the club $200/event. Only issue I see is the 2 indistinct paths in that area SW of Fruit Farm.. and the actual Fruit Farm was never field checked (was private).
Dec 1, 2014 4:56 PM
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I think the streamers were probably not really necessary. But since they were there, they should have gone the whole way to the control. I think most of the problems were people who stopped reading the map and depended on the streamers to take them in. Where the first set ended they picked up the next set which went directly to finish, bypassing the control entirely.
Dec 2, 2014 1:42 AM
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Note to self- from a couple gps routes, it looks like the pond is larger than mapped?
Dec 2, 2014 3:33 AM
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Len:
Yes, I noticed my track around the pond was wider than I ran.
Streamer - I was aware of the two legs and kept focused on finding the go control. I was set back a bit thinking it would be at the junction of the streamers. It makes Sence to streamer the finish and flag the last leg.
Green 3- I have not animated my route but I would suspect a pause whenn I reach the road debating on routes. The just past the power line I go off the trail where my intent is to countor to the control. That did not last long and I gave in to having to go upnand over. Once at the top, a bearing and pace got me to the control.
Green 1 was a tough one because I didn't really want to go up the trail. Good layout, tough choice... for me.
6 was tough because. I couldn't read the trails well near the control. The railroad bed is much more distinct in the field.
I liked the group of short legs 9-11 and did well getting to 9. I have been in this area the past two years and ignore all trails for reference points.
12 was fun to run in the orchard. My route changed as I went. It was not my intent to go all the way to the road but the woods did not look fast until I was too close to the road to ignore it.
14 was a little slow for me as the seems to be an unmapped trail in the area that was making me loo closer at the map. I liked the shorter final legs. They were not difficult controls but they give me a feeling that I need to move faster as the difficulty is lower.
Top 3 favorites - 1, 9, 12
Least favorite - even legs I don't like, I like for the challenge...mostly. I liked the whole course but if I had to pick one it would be 3. I was forced to take the trail and extra vertical... but it may have been the best route. San -snow I would have contoured this.... and may have been worse off.
Looking forward to next year's.
Streamer - I was aware of the two legs and kept focused on finding the go control. I was set back a bit thinking it would be at the junction of the streamers. It makes Sence to streamer the finish and flag the last leg.
Green 3- I have not animated my route but I would suspect a pause whenn I reach the road debating on routes. The just past the power line I go off the trail where my intent is to countor to the control. That did not last long and I gave in to having to go upnand over. Once at the top, a bearing and pace got me to the control.
Green 1 was a tough one because I didn't really want to go up the trail. Good layout, tough choice... for me.
6 was tough because. I couldn't read the trails well near the control. The railroad bed is much more distinct in the field.
I liked the group of short legs 9-11 and did well getting to 9. I have been in this area the past two years and ignore all trails for reference points.
12 was fun to run in the orchard. My route changed as I went. It was not my intent to go all the way to the road but the woods did not look fast until I was too close to the road to ignore it.
14 was a little slow for me as the seems to be an unmapped trail in the area that was making me loo closer at the map. I liked the shorter final legs. They were not difficult controls but they give me a feeling that I need to move faster as the difficulty is lower.
Top 3 favorites - 1, 9, 12
Least favorite - even legs I don't like, I like for the challenge...mostly. I liked the whole course but if I had to pick one it would be 3. I was forced to take the trail and extra vertical... but it may have been the best route. San -snow I would have contoured this.... and may have been worse off.
Looking forward to next year's.
Dec 2, 2014 3:53 AM
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I contoured to 3 but got pretty lucky... it would have been easy to miss. Climb slows me tremendously, so going up and over didn't appeal at all.
You can see in reality the pond bulges out to the East whereas on the map it does not.
You can see in reality the pond bulges out to the East whereas on the map it does not.
Dec 2, 2014 4:54 AM
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There is a lot in that area of the map which is schematically checked+drawn.
Dec 2, 2014 12:41 PM
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A combination of that pond indeed being larger (and my eyes being distracted by the uncrossable fence while looking at the map) confused me when I started running in some nasty stuff+a dangerous low hanging fence and a huge pothole I wanted people to avoid. And the orchard extends, but I wasn't worried about that as much.
Dec 2, 2014 12:42 PM
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I am glad you contoured! I am always trying to avoid climb when I orienteer (perhaps unnecessarily), so I think my route choice legs will sometimes reflect that.
Dec 3, 2014 1:02 PM
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Len:
Julie, that's exactly the route I was planning on. Even started in but between the snow, downfall and rocks I could see in the distance, I headed back to the trail.
Dec 5, 2014 6:16 PM
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Liked your route choices on Red. You did quite well given the map's aging, and, agreed w/j-man 'schematically' correct comments. Agreed Red #13 was basically on a new trail, that seemed to dead end in a downed tree near the ruin, that Lukas found a way-better way around that Sam & I did.
Overprinting the trails worked pretty good, but they could probably use a full pass-over by a professional mapper - incl. some downgrades/moves/deletions where over-printing can't help much. It could also perhaps be a bit more correctly scaled in places - e.g. using GPS registered points here & there, as doesn't seem to be esp. well-aligned in places (though maybe that's just my GPS?)
Overprinting the trails worked pretty good, but they could probably use a full pass-over by a professional mapper - incl. some downgrades/moves/deletions where over-printing can't help much. It could also perhaps be a bit more correctly scaled in places - e.g. using GPS registered points here & there, as doesn't seem to be esp. well-aligned in places (though maybe that's just my GPS?)
This discussion thread is closed.