Laughton Forest
29th September 2002
Results FOR THIS EVENT
winsplits FOR THIS EVENT
splitsbrowser FOR THIS EVENT
Apart from one incorrectly positioned control on the Brown course I think that there is very little to say about the courses, other than an apology for the state of the brambles under foot, if your route choice was straight through, rather than around some of the blocks of woodland.
Most competitors remarks at the download tent were positive and most winning times were around what was expected. I must admit that I may have made the Orange course a little too hard on this occasion, as the times were comparatively slow compared with the other courses.
My congratulations to all of the course winners and to everybody that competed at an orienteering event for the first time. I hope my courses haven't put you off!
My thanks go especially to Neil for asking me to plan the event, to John for his assistance and comments as controller, to Harry for updating the map and producing most of the master maps and to Dorothy and Mike for their help with the other master maps.
I
hope that the large turnout at this event can be repeated at all future Halo
events.
Laughton is an area of woodland that is a working
forest and used extensively by the general public as many of you would have seen
on the day. As a competitive orienteering member of HALO for many years I had
visited the woodland on a number of previous occasions but always with some
apprehension!! There are some good
bits, and some bad bits!! So when I was asked to control, I accepted with some
apprehension. My credentials (previous results) had obviously not been checked.
On my pre-event visit to check control sites with
Andrew, I was mindful that I had not visited the South end of the map on any
previous occasion (not even when walking my dog, as she and I often use these
woods for some exercise). I was also concerned that the event should also not be
just a path run for the more technical courses – a trap into which it is very
easy to fall in such a large working forest with an extensive path and track
network. However, Andrew had given me a selection of courses that proved to be
very creditable for all levels. Many favourable comments were made by satisfied
orienteers as they downloaded in the finish area, on what turned out to be a
glorious Sunday morning for the time of the year.
I must
apologise for the one little hiccup that occurred on the brown course, which
affected a number of competitors on that course – a wrongly placed control –
this has been removed from every Brown runners results, thus enabling us to
produce a full result list on the Brown Course.
Aaahhh!! The wonders of electronic punching!!
Other
than that everyone seemed to have had a good run, including a number of
first-timers.
I was quite overwhelmed by the numbers attending the
event. Following an analysis of previous events at Laughton, we estimated that a
turnout of 130(ish) would be a good number. In the end we exceeded this number
by about 50%, beating our previous badge event numbers. Well done and thank you
all for coming.
Controlling this event was made especially easy due to
Andrew’s thorough approach to planning, his knowledge of Laughton’s finer
details and his seemingly long hours in the woods. That, together with Neil’s
efficient organisation and our excellent computer support team made my
task a whole lot easier. My thanks them, the regular band of HALO helpers
(including a number of new faces!) and to all the participants. I enjoyed my
day, I hope you did, too.
Footnote: having controlled in Willingham (??probably
means Laughton?? – its his age – ed), and had a very good look round, I
now expect my results to improve quite
considerably!!
Many thanks to everyone who participated at
Laughton Forest this year, many more than we anticipated and about 40% more than
attended a Badge event at the same venue a couple of years ago.
The extra turnout did cause a few problems, apologies
to those competitors who had to copy out their course descriptions (and thank
you for doing so without complaint). The
maps almost ran out, the last two runners (HALO helpers) had to use the master
maps, though I’m sure they’d have been quicker if they had taken them off
the boards first. Car parking
spaces were at a premium, but thanks to Dave and Fran every available space was
utilised, although their torching policy for illegally parked cars was felt by
some to be heavy handed. Still
results count!
There was a large turn-out too, on the String Course,
with the Harris family doing an excellent job of keeper the younger competitors
happy, many of them running more than once.
A
big thank you to all the HALO helpers who were all a lot busier than expected,
particularly the data entry and registration teams. Well done to Andrew and John for planning and controlling the
wide variety of interesting courses.
page updated Sunday 10th November 2002