A results pdf is here
Planner's comments:
Thanks to everybody who took part in the traditional OD Christmas Relays. My feeling is that people were generally satisfied with the courses. Many did find the Orange and especially the Yellow course more difficult than they expected. Planning these courses is a bit of a challenge at Rough Close given how vague some of the leaf-covered trails are, but I will admit I did not go out of my way to make them easier, since I expected they would mostly be run by experienced adult orienteers. For the longer courses, the challenge was providing the expected course lengths in a small area while avoiding too many repetitions between the courses, yet not having too many controls so the total number is manageable. Without the restriction on the number of controls and repetitions, I would have varied the leg lengths more, but the longer legs did have the advantage of hopefully giving more route choice possibilities. The total number of controls was 64, a few less than last year. I also made sure there was a sort of “arena passage” on the longer courses, with runners passing in view of the start/finish midway through their courses. Apologies to a few people who missed the fact that the maps for the two longer courses were double-sided and started with the second half, thinking that the control numbering continued from the previous course. This should have been communicated better at the start.
I would like to thank Bob Brandon and Mel Elkington for organising the event. In addition, Bob transported the equipment (something I could not do myself without a car) and helped put out the controls and set up the start/finish. Bruce Bryant’s excellent map meant I could use nearly all controls from my first draft; he also finalised the course maps and arranged the printing. Controls were collected in just a few minutes after the last finish by Richard Gardner, Alistair Landels, Mark Rookledge and Juliette Soulard, which meant there was still time to enjoy the food prepared by Sue Hallett and Nadine Wright.
Mykyta Chubynsky