What Happened

I have to admit that the rush hour traffic on the Malone Road was nearly too much to bear. The speedometer on my car was recording a slower pace than most people on their courses. It took 50 minutes for me to travel the 3.7 miles from my house to the park !!! Thankfully I did manage to arrive about 6pm with just enough time to get the controls put out for the first starters.

Hopefully everyone enjoyed the courses. The longer course did have a few longer legs with alternative route choices available. The most talked about control seems to be the re-entrant at number 10 on the long course. It wasn't so much how difficult it was to get to the control (although that did prove a challenge for some), but rather the difficulty of getting away from it. The muddy slope proved too much for a number of people who had to resort back to the path option.

None of the controls went missing on the night thankfully, but it seems that control number 186 did go walkabout for a short time, before being replaced. It was the control at the path junction near to the house. It seems that for a period it was moved about 30 meters away to the top of a small hill. Hopefully no-one was confused too much, or lost too much time.

One thing that I should point out is that a number of people did not successfully 'clear' and 'check' their SI Cards before starting. As a result when they 'dibbed' in the 'start box' there was no beep, and thus no start time recorded. I have allocated all of these runners a start time 2.5 minutes before their first control. It is important to remember to hold the SI card into the 'clear' station for approximately 5-8 seconds until it beeps. This means that the card is now empty of any previous courses. You then put the SI card into the 'check' station, and it should beep almost instantly. You are then ready to put the card into the 'start' station, which should also beep, and you are on your way. I apologise if this wasn't explained properly to some of the new comers, but simply ask next week if you are having any problems.

Finally, the results have been uploaded onto Winsplits and Splitsbrowser. Check it out in the Split Times section for event 1. For any newcomers, it can be quite interesting to see how you compared to others over the course using the graphical representation of Splitsbrowser. You can see where you gained places and also lost them. Winsplits also highlights the controls that it deems you made mistakes at. It can also recalculate where you would have been placed if you didn't make those mistakes. I'll hopefully get the handicapped results and points earned onto the site on Friday morning.

Finally finally, thanks to everyone who turned up to support the event, and a big thankyou to Bill who helped me out on the night. It would not have been possible to have the event go so smoothly without his assistance. And of course thanks to Alan, Rachel, Charlie, Rory and Susan who collected the controls after the event.

Don't forget that next weeks event is at Ormeau Park. Check out the details later in the week for course lengths etc.

Declan