Firstly I would like to explain the rationale behind the length of the courses. Originally when we met with the (Margam) activities co-ordinator last year we had agreement to have the Finish and Arena just south of the castle and car parking close by. At the end of April a new person had taken over and vetoed all of the above saying that we had to park at the SE edge of the map and were not allowed to use the previously agreed Arena, as it would interfere with the regular paying public. After considering alternatives we decided that having the Arena close to the car parking was the best option.
The previous Senior courses had already been planned to start in Graig Fawr and I wanted to ensure that as many courses as possible went from there to give variety between the beech woodland and the parkland. The shortest practical course from the far start to assembly was a course of about 3.5k. If this was a normal Middle distance this would have ended up being possibly course 4 with the majority of the courses then starting near the Arena. We decided to turn this into a ‘Long Middle’ i.e. the Middle type race but with an estimated winning time of 40-45 minutes. As it turned out I feel that the courses were about 5-10% too long based on the winning times. I also feel that this information should have been communicated to the competitors in advance.
In addition much of the country park was never going to be at its best at this time of year and this had limitations on potential control sites and sensible routes on the round hill to the east of the castle and the sloped area further east of the hill. Despite this looking at RouteGadget I have been surprised at the number of people who took straight line routes through the thicker vegetation as opposed to the path options.
I received a few specific comments on the day which I will do my best to answer.
- Graig Fawr is a lovely beech wood but can get very slippery underfoot and having 800+ competitors through 19 controls in the Western edge was always going to be a tough ask. Apologies to the later competitors especially who struggled to access controls 146 and 127.
- Control 106 on courses 1 and 5 should have had more of the circle cut on the SW side as it obscured a re-entrant on the edge of the circle.
- Courses 6 and 7 drew a little bit of a short straw with the controls on the round hill, but I was trying to get the balance between the courses using that and those using the slope to the east.
- The Go Ape area also gave me some problems. We were never going to be able to use the whole area for the competition. If I had avoided the northern and eastern strip of the woodland that I used then it would have made courses 9 to 11 especially difficult to return to the Finish, as I did not want to take them onto the steep overgrown slopes to the north. I had hoped that the routes would avoid the actual apparatus but apparently some people were accidentally going through the zip wire landing area. As a result the Go Ape employees put up red and white tape part way through the competition which confused some of the competitors. Apologies to anyone affected.
There is one item I have not verified. Someone mentioned to me late in the day to me that there is an unmapped fence but with a gap in it. This affected course 2 19-20, course 5 14-15, course 9 9-10, course 10 9-10 and course 11 7-8. Apologies again to anyone impacted by this.
Finally many thanks to the following for making my life easier.
- Graham Tough for co-ordination the units, stakes and flags for the competition day.
- Pete Havard for helping to put out controls.
- Richard Barrett, Margaret Reynolds, Alice Bedwell and various other SBOC members who collected in controls and enabled me leave at a sensible time on the Friday.
- Charles Daniel as controller who had a light touch approach to my courses but whose suggestions invariably improved them. He also kindly collected controls after the event as well.
Peter Ribbans (SWOC)