Organiser's comments can be found after the results.

Results

Organiser's Comments

Loxley is a deceptively complex area, with many paths and gaps which change with the seasons. Perhaps surprisingly the area on the main common and adjacent the golf course is the area of greatest change, whereas the area in the crag area below the trig point had perhaps the most obvious and navigable-by-path features at this time of year (less bracken and heather). The secret of success on Loxley is to slow down (a bit) and make sure rather than speeding up and over-shooting, especially with the scale at 1:5,000. Some of the controls were grouped at close range to test this area, and there was a degree of grouping also planned in to prevent bingo-ing controls if the unwary did not check the numbers first.

The yellow course was a circuit of the main dog walking route on the flat common area. The orange included an incursion to the edge of the contour area in the East and a run along a path below the crags. The light green course took runners further into the contour area and down to features below the crags, and was more of a runner’s course. The majority (Green) runners concentrated in the contours area and the area below the crags with a couple of long run legs across the common to add distance. The Green course was ‘back to front’ to the other courses, so LG and G runners should have passed each other on the open common going in opposite directions but not really aiding control location. The map memory course would have had more effect if run first, and as we can see, with the times so close, it was down to running speed as much as anything else.

With a cold north wind, we aimed to move people from car to registration and start in the shortest possible time (I think the record was four minutes).

30 people ran on the day – the green was the most popular course and three brave souls then went on to have a go at the map memory course as well. On the MM course, the timings were grouped within 11 seconds although Alasdair was withdrawing the final control and map point as Lucy raced up to it, forcing her to divert from her planned optimal route. Did this make the difference of four seconds that Chris Littler had over on her at the finish? It’s a point that will be hotly debated for years to come no doubt.

Thanks to the people from SYO who assisted with the organisation including Brian Shaw and Colin Best (in advance); Pete Tryner, Martin, Melinda on the day. Apologies for one control being in a different re-entrant on the green and light green courses in the early part of the event – a minor positioning error on the day based on the points marked the week before and being the last control to go in on the morning during pre-prep, but had no real effect on the final results.