Controller’s Report VHI/Autumn Series1, Carlingford

 

I would like to thank 3 ROC for the invitation to control this competition.

From the first draft courses sent to me by Harold I knew that the courses would more than satisfy the international status of the competition. Harold made many changes to the courses and control sites over the next 6 weeks until they fulfilled his very exacting standards.

Given the nature of the terrain and the need to produce high class courses it was necessary to exceed the recommended climb. However the climb was well spread across the course.

The conditions on the mountain were well known to the team and full contingency plans were prepared to drop the longer courses. On the day conditions were good for the VHI but the weather did deteriorate during the Autumn Series.

As you know we had asked the Mountain Rescue Team to standby and, regrettably, they were called upon to “stretcher” two competitors off the mountain. They advised the Organiser that this would mean they would be unable to provide cover for up to 1 ½  hours.

Due to this, and following their advice, I felt that it was necessary to close the Brown course. I hope those who were disappointed by this decision understand that it was taken for the safety of all – the competitors, officials and the Rescue Team.

Likewise, I hope the decision to insist on cagoules being carried was understood. Surely we should all come prepared for exposed conditions, and carry cagoules on any mountain. Injury can happen to anyone.

Overall it was a thoroughly enjoyable experience working, on a superb mountain, with a highly professional team. Given the man hours put in by the team the term “professional” takes on a new meaning.

In particular I would like to thank Maire, Liam and Trina for their organisation along with the teams working on the day, Nigel and Brian for their mastery of Sportident and finally Harold and Aine  for producing excellent courses for your enjoyment.

 

Richard Williamson LVO

 

Planners Report VHI/Autumn Series1, Carlingford  

 

In planning the VHI and Colour courses we took into account the possibility of bad weather given the exposed nature of the terrain and the frequent coverage by mist, and partly because of this and the steep terrain, we erred on the side of caution in the length of the courses. As always on Carlingford, it is difficult to design courses that have a gradient within the 5% guideline especially when measuring on a straight line basis, and on the limited feedback that we received, the climbs did not lead to any adverse comments. However the steepness of the area allows for three dimensional legs and it is interesting from the split times that those legs requiring significant height changes seemed to cause most problems.

 

It is hard to know what effect the weather had on VHI competitor times as it rapidly deteriorated from the first start time, and perhaps the early starters had an advantage. Clearly the Colour course competitors faced the worst of the weather and this was more evident in their finish times. With the lack of line features the Yellow and Orange courses had to have taped routes as far as the hand rail of the fence, and this allowed their course times to be close to planned.

 

Of the VHI courses, Course 7 (M45, M50) was perhaps a bit on the short side and Course 4 (W55, W60) a bit on the long side given the National Guidelines, but in the main the winning times came in close to those estimated. What is evident from the VHI results was the closeness of competition where on average four of the eight competitors in each class finished within 25% of the winning time, and six out of the eight finished within 50%. In the M40 class the eight finishers had times within 20% of the winning time. Another interesting statistic to come out of the split  times was that in eight out of the ten VHI classes, the fastest competitor on the first leg was the winner of the class.

 

I would like to thank Richard Williamson, the controller, Aine Ni Suilleabhain who assisted in the planning process and designed the non-VHI courses, and Nigel Campbell-Crawford, Trina Cleary, and Liam Convery who assisted in our part of the organisation. Richard was an extremely diligent and supportive controller throughout the planning process. I am also deeply indebted to Aine for all of her assistance and for keeping the show on the road. We had many good times visiting Carlingford ahead of the event, sometimes in brilliant sunshine and sometimes in mist with five metres visibility. We hope that the competitors equally enjoyed the area, and the courses, despite the poor weather.    

 

Harold White

  

 

Since writing the above, one of the organising team suggested that I explain how I arrived at the VHI course lengths and climbs.

Firstly I examined the results of the previous year’s VHI event in Scotland and talked to some of the Irish team who reckoned that Carlingford would be technically and physically more difficult.

 

For arriving at course lengths and climbs for target winning times, I use the formula that assumes that 100m of climb will take the same amount of time as running 1K on flat ground and the resulting adjusted ‘length’ is used to calculate adjusted minutes per K (MPK) and winning times.

 

The BOF guidelines for arriving at course lengths and climbs uses ratios for each course off a base of the course length and climb that will produce a winning time of an M21L runner of 75 minutes. From past experience of planning events on Carlingford, I assumed that this would equate to a course length of 10K with 500m of climb or an ‘adjusted’ length of 15K. By using the BOF ratios for the various courses, as detailed in the table below, I calculated the target ‘ adjusted’ course lengths. Given the steepness of Carlingford, the climbs on each course was more of a limiting factor and made the course lengths relatively short.

 

A key component in calculating the target winning times is the speed of the competitors and I used the winners MPK from the previous VHI event but added about 10 per cent on the assumption that Carlingford would be more difficult. As will be seen from the table below, the M40 winner was slower at the adjusted 5.20 minutes per K than expected, the M45’s and W45’s were faster, and the W55’s and W60’s were slower. In the latter case my conclusion is that greater allowance for the climb should have been taken into account. It was also noticable that on this course was the greatest disparity between the fastest and slowest runners.

 

Course

Class

BOF Ratio

Adjusted =arget Length*

Course =ength k

Course =limb m

Actual =djusted Length*

Estimated =inner’s Adjusted MPK*

Estimated =inning Time

Actual =inning Time

Winner’s =ctual Adjusted

MPK*  =/SPAN>

VHI 03 =inner’s Act Adj MPK*

8

M40

0.85

12.75

8.15

520

13.35

5.00

66.45

71.23

5.20

4.52

7

M45

0.69

10.35

6.44

435

10.79

5.50

59.21

54.17

5.02

5.01

 

M50

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

59.20

5.29

 

6

M55

0.56

8.40

5.16

375

8.91

6.00

53.28

57.40

6.26

5.63

 

M60

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

57.47

6.27

 

 

W40

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

56.33

6.21

 

5

W45

0.45

6.75

4.01

250

6.51

7.00

45.34

44.23

6.48

6.04

 

W50

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

46.46

7.08

 

4

W55

0.39

5.85

3.43

200

5.43

8.00

43.26

52.48

9.40

7.08

 

W60

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

47.27

8.42

 

·          Calculated on the basis of every 100m of climb =dding the equivalent of 1K to the course length.

 

 

HW