Shotover Saturday Series Event - 11 June 2011 : Planner's Comments
Planning at this time of year is always made more difficult by undergrowth, and with this year's weather being ideal for bracken and nettles trying to plan challenging courses while avoiding the worst was tricky. Having armchair planned based on my experience of the area from May's Summer Series before checking on the ground last weekend, it was frustrating to have to almost start again with the longer courses with so much of the area being inpenetrable without a machete!
With lots of path running to avoid the undergrowth being inevitable, the key to planning interesting longer courses was introducing as much route choice as possible. Judging by comments at the finish there were certainly some interesting routes taken, and I hope that these will be shared with everyone on Routegadget.
During the event control 151 (no. 6 on Yellow) was moved by persons unknown about 25m up the path to the east. Apologies to everyone affected by this, and thanks to John Farren for interrupting his Light Green run to report it. I'd also like to apologise to anyone on Light Green who found their first control a bit hard due to the undergrowth on the straight line approach, I should probably have extended the undergrowth screen on the map to encourage the longer but much easier roundabout route.
Thank you for all coming along to run in the sunshine, and thanks in particular to everyone that helped on the day with registration, download, coaching and control collecting.
Mark Collis