| Date | Event | Parking | Organiser |
|---|---|---|---|
| From 20 November Any time |
Forest Training Ruspidge Halt |
GL14 3ER | Maprun Gloucestershire |
As we are unable to organise formal events in the Forest of Dean at present, we have decided to extend our summer series of informal orienteering training activities, but with the added difference that these courses will only be available to run for a 3 day period. We hope to have new courses available each fortnight, and by limiting their availability, we will encourage people to run them while they can, to look forward to the next ones, and perhaps to engender some informal competition between runners in your age classes. That said, these are NOT formal events; you run at your own risk, free of charge, and in accordance with government rules for gathering and social distancing.
Travel and Parking
Parking is either in the small parking area at the entrance to the forest track on the South side of the B4226, or if that is full, on the other side of the road, and down the hill a bit, in the entrance and car park for the Linear Park, by Ruspidge Halt, after which the training session is named! If approaching from the West, the forest track is just past the 30mph speed limit and Cinderford town sign, and the Linear Park turning is the first turn on the left beyond; coming from the West, you pass the Linear Park turning first, marked by an old railway wagon, and the forest track is on the further up the hill, and just before the big Forest of Dean sign.
The Area
The area we are using is adjacent to, and overlaps a little with, that used for Paul Taunton’s Lightmoor League event back in March. The greater part of the courses run up the Staple Edge ridge above Ruspidge village, but all courses also cross to the hitherto unused(by us) old slag heap alongside the Lightmoor Timber Works. It is frequented by off-road motor bikers and scramblers, but not heavily, and should be Ok to run through, as long as you keep an eye out for these people, who may not be keeping an eye out for you!
Going is generally good underfoot, though there has been some thinning recently, with resultant brashings in places. The ground is pretty waterlogged, so grippy shoes and spares shoes and socks are a must.
The Map
A4 1:10,000 ISOM map, 5m contours, LIDAR 2018 based, with selective updates for this event. Controls have been GPS checked, and GPS signal is generally pretty good throughout the area.
PDF versions of the course maps, and control descriptions, will be published here a couple of days or so before the start of the activity. The courses themselves can be downloaded from the UK/Gloucestershire/Training folder on the maprun server, again a couple of days or so before the activity window.
The Courses
We plan to provide the same three courses at each of these training activities, the details for this one, subject to a final check, being as follows:
- Orange: 3.7km, 90m climb, 10 controls
- Green: 4.2km, 150m climb, 14 controls
- Blue: 6.8km, 210m climb, 15 controls
Maps and control descriptions can be download from here:
Orange Green Blue Control Descriptions
The Start is located next to the elongated knoll on the path through the wooden forest barrier from the smaller car park, on the left of the main forest track. The Finish is on the other side of the main forest track, on a ride which runs into the forest on the right of the main forest track, where it meets a deep ditch.
Course Notes
A note for Blue course runners; control 7 is an extremely shallow gully, quite easy to miss, perhaps shouldn’t be mapped, but it is there. It is furthermore very close to the edge of the map. Please take extra care not to run off the map there. The vegetation boundary is very distinctive, and if you follow that you should get a beep at the control, but slow down and let your GPS catch up with you. Pace count from the path to the North east, or the depression and knoll, to make sure you don’t overrun that control.
These are GPS courses, using maprun technology, with the usual 25m punch tolerance that we use for these training runs. That means that you should normally expect to get a beep from your phone or watch as you’d likely see a control flag if there was one in place. While checking, this was generally the case, but the GPS location did wander somewhat in some places, so it’s worth slowing down as you approach the control, to let your GPS catch up. As before, if you are sure you are in the right place, but get no confirming beep, carry on, and review your results when you finish, using the HITMO facility.
Maprun has various facilities which you can choose to use if you are inexperienced orienteer, or you would like some form of backup on a course with no physical controls to confirm that you have visited the controls.
- The courses are set up to allow you optionally to display your current location and track, should you wish to do so. To use this facility, you simply enable these options by tapping Options and Setting before tapping Go to Start. Note that you cannot enable them once you have tapped Go to Start. You may find this useful as a novice. If more experienced, these options can also be useful in the event that you think you are in the right place, but the phone hasn’t beeped to confirm. You carry your phone hidden away, so not using the location to aid your navigation, but if lost, or if you are sure you are in the right place, you can get your phone out and have a look at where it thinks you are.
- maprun has a facility called HITMO – Hey I Think I Missed One – which you can use post run to add to your result any controls which you believe you visited, but the phone did not record. One of the limitations of GPS and phone technology is that sometimes the phone location will be lagging behind your actual position, and the accuracy of the GPS location is affected by things like tree cover and deep valleys etc. HITMO will check your track against the control locations and will allow you to add ‘punches’ for controls it thinks you visited, but which did not register. You access it from the results screen on your phone, using the menu icon on the top right corner of the screen. So, if you are fast and confident in your navigation, and are sure you are in the right place for a control, there should be no need to loiter waiting for the phone to catch up and beep and tell you so…..you can keep going, and review your track with HITMO after the Finish.
Technology
You will use the maprunF or maprunG app to record your time and punches. If you have not used maprun before, you need to download the app from the relevant app store before you travel to the event. You should also verify that the app is correctly installed on your phone, has the necessary permissions to use the location and storage services, and ideally has been tested by means of a simple local test at home. You can find plenty of information on how to set up and test your phone on the Getting Started page of the Maprun Gloucestershire website.
You should also download the event to your phone before travelling. Whilst the app does not need a phone signal to work, it does clearly need one to download the course, and there is a strong chance that there wont be one in the forest. Note that this is particularly important for maprunG users; maprunG does require a phone signal to download the course to your watch, and to upload it back to your phone afterwards. In that case you may have to wait until you have a signal before uploading.
Timings
These courses will be available to download and run on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, the 20-22nd November. In keeping with current constraints on travel, and by popular demand, we will not take the courses down after that, but if you can get there this weekend, please try and do so. Whilst we cannot gather by design, it is good to come across by chance others running the courses, and it adds a small measure of safety when we are running off track, if there may be others around doing the same thing. The courses will nevertheless remain available to download and run after the weekend. They are free of charge.
Safety
The courses cross no roads, and are suitable for younger runners if suitably experienced, or accompanied.
You run entirely at your own risk. Bear in mind that you are likely to be off-path for significant parts of the courses, and although this is a fairly populous part of the forest, you could be out of sight of paths and passers by if you were to fall. You are strongly advised, if running alone, to let someone know where you are going, when you will be back, and make arrangements to tell them that you are indeed back safely.
You may encounter dirt bike riders around the slag heap, but you will probably hear them long before you see them, and in general they wont be using the smaller paths which you are likely to use.
Queries
If you have comments or queries on the courses or technology, please email maprun@ngoc.org.uk