Discussion: Designing for a trails-only course

I am designing three foot courses and one mountain bike course for a park that is trails-only.

Any tips on keeping the course interesting?

I know I can position legs so that competitors have to choose: left, then right? or right, then left?

Should I perhaps use a series of short legs to prevent boring "dead running"?

Any more insight?

Thanks!

Here are my thoughts...

The more decision points (your left vs right), the better in general. Multiple decision points per leg is also good. Try to make the choices matter, make one better but not obviously so, which can be hard to do, especially with experienced orienteers. Test the legs by running all the better options and adjust accordingly.

One approach is to plan several long legs in isolation, legs that give very good route choice options, and then tie those legs together into a course.

It will be interesting to see if you get different advice for your two questions. I would also be interested in hearing what makes a good ski-o course, since a similar principle applies.

For the foot courses, the score or scatter format may make them more interesting than line courses. This example is a scatter event with 3 different length options (see top right of map). The map includes a large park where competitors have to stay on trails, the rest of the map is basically roads. Having to make decisions on which controls to collect or leave out adds complexity to an area that would be boring with line courses.

I'm not sure why you feel that short legs would be better. I would plan some long legs then short legs with changes of direction, etc. I think the MTB course will be more interesting since riding speed varies so much on different trails and slopes. On foot the obvious solution (shortest distance) may often be fastest, not so on the bike.

This suggests the following (although thoroughly impractical.) Require footies to walk on certain nominated trails. Another device: declare certain trails one-way. Basically, try to upset the normal assumptions about the fastest way from A to B.

From a ski-o perspective, I get really annoyed when people introduce artificial route choice factors (like one-way trails), because it just funnels the skiers onto a regular skiing course. Set some good long legs so that the skier/biker goes into O2 debt, and then throw a bunch of control-pick/dense trail networks to confuse people. The denser the trail network, the better.

I think the scatter example that simmo linked to is a good one. I used to be always anti score/scatter courses, until I started putting on and attending local street and park events with newcomers. There are a lot of advantages to doing it that way.

Please clarify...

Is a scatter event, essentially a score event, in which a certain number of controls, of the participant's choosing, must be visited, in any order, using elapsed time (vs points, with a time limit) for comparison?

Yes.

That's essentially what was used for the Mt. Tom post-T'day NEOC events for many years, and called "western Mass. rules."

Hmm, we call it a Freestyle.

[edit: as does San Diego in the Anza-Borrego info]

Most of the Ski O's in Colorado use this format too.

If I am not mistaken, WMA rules, allow changing categories (numbers of controls required) at the finish. Is this a typical policy, or unique to WMA? I'm pretty sure it does not apply to the THOMASS variant.

Are these typically mass-start events?

"Western Mass Rules" is a specific variation of this general concept. Most of the post-Thanksgiving events did not actually conform to the original specification, but rather to a variation sometimes known as "Western Connecticut Rules". (The details are not really that important, other than to hopeless pedants like myself.)

J-J, please share. I set courses in Tucson that I said followed "Western Mass Rules". I want to know if I lied.

Is there a name for a score-o with a map exchange?

From the results of the first ever Western Mass Rules meet:

I'm missing the issue of The NEOC Times with the meet invitation, that had more detail and some of the reasoning behind the rules.

Our scatter events are mass start, first home wins. Noone is allowed to look at their map until the Start signal (except for novices). Following does appear to be minimal provided the course is well set, most people are running different routes by their 2nd or 3rd control. Remember also that even if there is/are a best/better route(s) some people will look at the course differently and do the same route as others, but in the opposite direction.

If you sign up for one option (say Short) but after a few controls you feel great and want to do more, then you could get the extra controls for the Medium and tell the organisers when you finish. If for some reason (injury, exhaustion) you can't complete a longer option, then you could theoretically get your result included in a shorter one, but most people don't - they seem to be happier with a DNF on, say, the Long course than with a mid-field result on the Medium.