Thanks to organiser/planner Vanessa Lawson, controller Paul Taunton and everyone who helped at today’s event in the Forest of Dean. It was a great use of the area with longer route choice legs, staying away from the worst of the September bracken and brambles to explore some nice forest around Parkend Walk. Results are available via the following links:
Results Splits Routegadget Standings
Lost and Found
- Found: One black gaiter, found between assembly and the start
- Lost+Found: One dibber lost by a lady on the Blue course (RC), later found and returned by another competitor – thank you!
Either item can be collected from registration at a future league event.
Planner’s comments
As my first time organising a full event this was a steep learning curve. I chose Parkend due to its proximity to home and travel minimisation, however the planning was made more complex by mapping issues and also uncooperative vegetation (how annoying that the bracken and brambles kept growing!
The Westernmost part of the map was only visited by Blue and Brown. Six months ago it was a lovely runnable woodland, but this is a working forest and over the early summer a lot of work was carried out. Brashings galore, but the main features were still visible through the thinnings. Control 202 was initially my favourite but it went from being really clear to much less so, at least definitely still there.
Mountain biking is also very popular in the entire area and there has been a proliferation of new tracks since the lockdown period.
Route choice was an aspect that I wanted to include in the courses, especially the longer ones. With the shorter courses there was a constraint created by the hilly nature of the area.
- The Yellow had to negotiate many mountain bike tracks but most children seemed to get round fine.
- The Orange went to the lower section of the map and the Short Green would have had a bit more route choice if the brambles hadn’t been so rampant.
- The Green had a long leg with some degree of route choice although it will be interesting to see whether many chose the less obvious route.
- The Blue and Brown inevitably had the longest legs and most route choice, and also got to go to 207 and 201 which were in a nice part of the map, just a bit too far away for the others.
Thanks to Gill and Andy Stott plus grandchildren we had a string course in the sunshine, I hope the youngsters enjoyed it – and the sweets (!)
Ellwood FC were thankfully available for hire – I am sure you will agree that sitting out in the sunshine after running, maybe even with cups of tea and pasties, made for a lovely outing. I hope you got some kit shopping in too 🙂
Many many thanks to Paul Taunton who as Controller has been incredibly busy reviewing my plans, answering emails, checking and updating the map and providing constant helpful suggestions such as the 195 site which turned out to be a really nice location.
Finally a big shout for the machine that is the ‘NGOC Organisation Team’ as it was incredibly efficient. I had never before appreciated the fact that on the day of the event stuff just happens without the planner having to say anything. Signage is put out, start lanes and finish flags appear, registration is set up, maps arrive, etc etc etc. It is really impressive.
I look forward to seeing your runs on Routegadget, and I would very much appreciate it if you could spare a bit of time to upload them.
Thanks for running/helping/both, see you at the next event!
Vanessa