Results for NOC Little John Relays, Rufford Country Park and New Wood, 02/07/2006

Planner

When NOC needed a planner for the LJR, I wasted no time in putting my name down. Personally, I prefer relays than standard individual events as the 'head-to-head' aspect requires excellent concentration, tactics and speed. I therefore couldn't wait to conjure up a relay event that would produce this 'head-to-head' racing.

It really annoys me that every year planners always seem to change the format of every relay each year (eg. British/White Rose) so naturally I joined in with the LJR. I wanted to produce a relay that involved a variety of challenges with different courses. I produced some very short courses (A1,A2, X1, X2) that were more like control picks with changes in direction as they passed through the rapid sections of Rufford. B1 and B2 were meant to test route choice (although not very imaginatively) and involved slogging it round the lake. The L course was designed to again offer some route choice and test concentration after running back and forth on a 500m track run. Then came the final legs when I really wanted to test runners with changes of direction, numerous controls with a large portion of the final leg in view of spectators.

So did I succeed? Well, sort of. Loads of people came back saying the A courses (on the long) were the trickiest with most losing sizeable amounts over 2km. The route choice legs over the lake were taken both ways on all legs- there was really nothing in it. I measured it on OCAD and there was a 10m difference in the different routes. The skill is to choose your route choice and stick to it- something hard to do when you have the voice in your head telling you to change routes. Mr Sprot certainly stretched his legs on the L course with 33 mins for 6km and similar speeds were recorded on different legs. Fixing the final leg was a good idea in my mind- in previous LJR at some random point in time someone finishes and declares they've won and that's about it as far as sprint finishes. Having this last leg allowed me and others to keep tabs on where people were. It was good that the top three teams went out within 4 mins of each other with 2nd and 3rd place packing together towards the end. Unfortunately, the order of these two teams was determined by who punched all the controls rather than who could sprint fastest!

It was great to see such a great turnout to the event and the fact that people mainly came for the relays rather than colour coded. Loads of people moan about relays but the turnout today showed that there is definitely demand for this type of thing. It was also great to see everyone chatting and having a nice day out with the family/friends- something you rarely get with the car-dependent nature of most CC events.

Finally, big thankyous to all helpers. Thanks to Alan Beardsley (controller) for always pointing me in the right direction and Andy Jones (organiser) for saving most people from the �3 toll at the Rufford car park. Thanks to my dad for converting my brothers old window frame into a stile. BIG thanks for Michael Napier for doing all the SI kit and the token system and the computing. Finally thanks to you, the competitors for coming.

See you next year!!

If you have any comments about the courses/format or want to see a copy of another course then .

Andy Llewellyn