I’ve been mining the British Orienteering event results pages and have produced a websites presenting the results in a more effective way – i.e. athlete focused rather than event focused. I’m also having a go at recalculating the ranking score based on this data.

Unfortunately there are a couple of flaws:

• The BOF ID is not available on the source website, so I have had to construct a key based on name (which can be misspelled on results uploads from time-to-time) and club (ditto). This mainly works, except where people change club, in which case their results, run under other clubs, that contribute to their ranking score, won’t be included.
• It turns out that, with each new result upload, all the ranking points for all events going back the whole of the last year – possibly more – are recalculated. This has the effect of old scores drifting slightly – I wasn’t expecting the points to fluctuate in such a way. The effect is mainly small – so far one of my scores has drifted by 1 point – but another person’s score has drifted by 7 points. I could mitigate this by scraping all results over the last year every night, but this would put strain on BOF’s servers and they would probably not appreciate it – it would be over 5000 page requests over the course of several hours. So, instead, I’m updating the most recent 25 events nightly and may manually resync the whole year on an ad-hoc basis. The result is that, after a while, the scores don’t match precisely with those on the source website.

The toughness scores for each event are just a bit of fun and based on the details of the course, not how well people did on it. The urban shading is also just based on the name of the event, rather than any specific metadata on the event that I am accessing. Such metadata may be available in the event details section of the source website but I am just using the results information here.

The collation of a large number of results has highlighted various data problems, such as results appearing as HH:MM rather than MM:SS, or x,xxx km instead of x.xxx km. Unfortunately one of my own (few) event result uploads suffered the first problem. This doesn’t affect the points at all, because the times within each course are only used on a relative, not absolute, basis, but it does preclude me, for example, totalling the “yearly run hours” for each athlete, without cleaning up the data on my side.

You can see the stats here – type in your name and club to see your stats. See the notes on the search page, e.g. most Level D events not included. You can also compare two people, looking at where they ran the same courses at the same event.

I’ve had an idea for a new type of orienteering club for London. One with a slightly different focus to the current ones. My inspiration is City Runners and Centrum OK, and to a lesser extent Stragglers RC and Fetch Everyone.

• Its aim would be member training, socialising and attending external events in a coordinated way, rather than putting on events.*
• Its initial life would be as an community orienteering group (it is unclear whether such entities can be affiliated to the national federation) moving to full club status when membership numbers – and so finances – allowed, and certainly before it put on public events. Alternatively, and probably more likely, it could exist as a satellite of another club, such as MADO, which is/was a satellite of HOC.*
• Membership would be very cheap – say £4 (+national/regional membership) or even free – it would be the cheapest way to be a member of an orienteering club and a national federation – especially as local-level national/regional membership is also free for the first year, making membership completely free for new people.**
• It would potentially affiliate also to England Athletics – although as community running group rather than as a full running club.*
• It would be an open, geographical club with core membership intended to be in, but not limited to, London Zones 1-4, or people who are otherwise very well connected to the centre of London.*
• It would be called something like Central London or Cross River, to reflect its central London focus. Acronyms for the club name would be avoided as far as possible.*
• It would have little kit of its own. It would probably have a small set of training flags, possibly acquired through the “Year in a Box”, bought from the national federation.
• It would have a significant sponsor.

PROMOTION
• Promotion would be entirely online. It would have a small, low-key website, an announcement email list, a Facebook group and probably a Twitter account.*
• Its primary form of promotion, announcements etc would be through the Facebook group.*
• If funds allowed, a limited amount of advertising would be placed through Facebook and Google Adwords.
• It would not have a paper newsletter, print flyers or indeed have any paper presence.*

EVENTS AND TRAINING
• It would in fact run some events, membership willing, but these would mainly be in the Street-O format (both score and point-to-point). Eventually it would put on a couple of Park Race style events in the summer time, once a small number of parks had been mapped by members of the club and members had gained the necessary qualifications.***
• Professional mappers would not be employed. If possible, the club’s maps would be produced using FOSS.
• As soon as its finances allowed, first-claim members would be able to attend all events put on by the club for free.
• Its members would be actively encouraged to regularly take part in local events put on by the other London clubs and, if available, join such clubs as second-claim members.
• It would eventually have a club kit but this would be in the form of runners’ technical tops rather than orienteering kit or runners’ race kit.*
• It would have a club night run from a regular and central London location, probably a friendly pub. This would often take the form of a run rather than technical training.*

Inspired by:
* City Runners
** Stragglers
*** Centrum OK

Photo by timbobee.

1. Courses put on by clubs:

vs Actual runs done, by course:

…which shows that we put on a lot of Orange and Yellow courses, but really everyone wants to run Green or Blue.

2. Actual runs done, by club of the runner:

vs Actual runs done, by organising club:

…which shows that some clubs are mainly about organising events (e.g. HOC), some are mainly about running in events (e.g. BOK), but most are about both.

3. Finally – which regions see the most number of runs?

S(OA) = Scotland, W = Wales. The rest are English regions: NE/NW/SE/SW, EA (East Anglia), SC = (South Central), YH (Yorkshire/Humberside), EM/WM (E/W Midlands). While large events that rotate around the regions on a multi-year timetable will distort this, some very large events (e.g. the Scottish 6 Days) don’t appear on British Orienteering’s system as having a region associated with them, so will not appear in the above Wordle.

I think I’m almost back to being able to run now, although I have dropped in fitness slightly. Here’s my race plan for Spring 2012:

• Tue 10 Jan – SLOW Marylebone Street-O
• Sun 15 Jan – MVOC Holmbush
• Sat 21 Jan – EUOC Edinburgh City Race
• Sun 22 Jan – EUOC Holyrood Park
• Thu 26 Jan – CHIG Victoria Park Street-O
• Sun 29 Jan – BKO Concorde Chase?
• Thu 2 Feb – SAX Sevenoaks Street-O
• Sun 5 Feb – DFOK Chelwood
• Tue 7 Feb – SLOW Brockley Street-O
• Sun 12 Feb – CHIG Claybury
• Sun 19 Feb – CompassSport Cup Qualifier
• Sun 26 Feb – SLOW Wimbledon
• Sat 3 Mar – St Andrews Scottish Sprint Champs
• Sun 4 Mar – St Andrews City Race
• Sat 10 Mar – Varsity Match at Burnham Beeches
• Sun 11 Mar – Varsity Match Relays
• Tue 13 Mar – SLOW Street-O
• Sun 18 Mar – DFOK Mereworth?
• Wed 21 Mar – Possible Munro trip
• Sat 24 Mar – British Sprint Championships, York
• Sun 25 Mar – British Middle Championships, near York
• Sun 1 Apr – Waltham Half Marathon
• W/e 6-9 Apr – JK, Scotland
• Tue 10 Apr – SLOW Street-O
• Sun 15 Apr –
• Sat 21 Apr – JOK Chasing Sprint
• Sun 22 Apr – Back to London to help at the London Marathon?
• Sun 29 Apr –
• Sat 5 May – British Championships, Lake District
• Sun 6 May – British Relays, Lake District

Just a quick post for people who use Attackpoint – >a OpenOrienteeringMap (OOM) is on it! More specifically, you can view GPS routes that people have uploaded, using OpenOrienteeringMap as a background.

To do this:
1. Click on the little “globe” icon beside an entry that has a GPS log. Here’s an example from my Venice Street Race run on Sunday.
2. On the map that loads, click on the “OSM” button on the top right.
3. Click on one of the OOM items on the menu that appears just below the OSM button.

(Note, the global version of OOM is used – this one does not update as the OpenStreetMap database updates, but instead on a more occasional schedule.)

The basemap is based on OpenStreetMap data.

So, the fourth City of London Race happened at the weekend. 1109 people crossed the start line, and with around 80 helpers from South London Orienteers, almost all dressed in the distinctive red City Race helpers tees and hoodies, the event went off pretty smoothly. No controls were vandalised this year, even though we had almost 80 out on the course, and although there were a couple of mistakes on the map (including at a key section in the Barbican), and a normally-locked gate that a number of people discovered open (and ran through), no competitors raised formal complaints. Feedback on Nopesport, Attackpoint and Twitter has been generally very positive. St Giles Terrace and the City of London School for Girls proved to be a brilliant race arena. It was big enough to accommodate everyone, scenic (with the old church, the lake, and a glimpse of the Gherkin if you knew where to look) and visible to the public, some of whom had a go at a course on the day. I don’t think the flats overlooking the arena were unduly disturbed by the noise – it turns out that once the fountains in the lake switch on in the morning, everything else is drowned out.

During the event, I was able to spend most of my time out in the Barbican Estate itself, taking numerous photographs of runners at various levels and angles – you can see 156 of the best here. I only needed a few urgent trips out on the bike – to rehang a control higher, hang two in a park that only opened just before the event start, and tape off an illegal approach to a control hung by a (low) uncrossable wall. Other developing issues, such as a poorly mapped set of stairs confusing some people, were left unchanged so as not to make it even more unfair for the early runners.

We know some people ran out of bounds (N.B. The person in the photo here is in-bounds!) – through the aforementioned locked gate for instance, and one person with a headcam filmed himself running into the Barbican centre, up a couple of internal stairwells and back out onto the map. There were other similar quirks, and also roadworks that disappeared in the few days before the event, while several others sprang up. Crossrail’s and Thameslink’s impact on the City should not be underestimated, and hoarding lines seem to change on an almost daily basis. The City also itself is carrying out many “Streetscene” enhancements, gradually pedestrianising and beautifying areas, the skyscraper builders are hard at work anticipating the next boom, and Thames Water is desperate to find all those leaks. It’s not my final call, but I don’t think we are disqualifying anyone – it’s not a Championship, we don’t think these wrinkles materially affected the results enough (the notorious gate saved people at most 40m and a couple of turns), and it’s part of what makes it an urban race, rather than a sprint or a regular orienteering event where the land is more static and reliable. I’m sure that gate will be taped in future years though…

We had great difficulty accommodating the 209-odd starters on the Men’s Long course – fewer than expected opted for Men’s Short on entering. Maybe a Men’s Elite (with a hard limit of say 90, at two minute intervals, and entry by invitation from the Men’s Long start list) would be the way to go. At the same time, I dislike having a Men’s Short with a prize for the winner. People are in fact allowed to enter any course at non-Championship events like this, and many people treat Men’s Short as a course to run if they are injured, want an easy run, or consider themselves to be “not competitive” rather than as a genuine competitive course. This is why the Men’s Short course had two people who finished well ahead of the rest, and who have scored far more points than indeed the winner of the Men’s Long. So maybe an invited Men’s Elite and general Men’s Open should be the split for future years.

The event organising team is, I think, now suffering somewhat from volunteer fatigue. I know that the time spent on the event by many in SLOW (the organising club) was great – probably too great. In my case, the great majority of the time was spent on the “labour-of-love” work of extending, updating and correcting the map that I have nurtured now for over four years, exploring the new parts of the City, test-running, and running the event’s website – including a “live page” on the day that I was able to post photos to, and gather tweets from others. Only the last-minute worrying and what-if-ing of the final two weeks was the bit I would rather avoid! The traditional organising truimviate of planner, organiser and controller also spent more time than they normally would on a “bog-standard orienteering event”. It was a lot of time, but the result was a polished event – I thought the planner’s courses this year were the best yet, even the very first leg had three possible routes and an immediate decision to be taken by most competitors.

It will also be interesting seeing what happens to the event, now that it is the biggest urban orienteering race in the UK, and quite possibly the second biggest in the world after Venice. Certainly, the 300-odd overseas competitors gave the event a lovely international feel – particularly as the overseas designs of orienteering tops generally look a lot better. I have already written my thoughts on what could happen to urban orienteering in London in general. Clearly there is a certain expectation amongst both the local orienteering community and the o-tourist, for future “city style” events, where the typical run is for an hour and the route, while not necessarily being very technical, passes several of the “London landmarks” – this year St Paul’s Cathedral, the Gherkin, Lloyds of London and of course the Barbican were visited by many. But at the same time I think the format needs to be tweaked and refined to keep it fresh. Certainly we have overused the Barbican Estate now – it was used a lot in 2008 and a bit in 2009, and a huge amount this year – so I expect that this will play almost no part in races for the next few years – not least because of impact on the residents and the difficulty of negotiating access. With next year’s pairing with the Southern Championships in nearby Epping Forest the following day, perhaps there is a case for having shorter courses with target winning times of say 35 minutes – i.e. a “middle-distance” urban race which, due to the higher pace and shorter legs, would also allow less technical areas to be enjoyed more. There is also perhaps less pressure on keeping the race “technical” anyway, as the following day’s event should satisfy in that regard.

Now, back to the regular orienteering – Street-Os in London, “real” orienteering outside such as the CompassSport Cup Final and a Mountain Marathon, and enjoying the efforts of other urban race organisers – Cambridge in October should be a real treat with the college quadrangles, and I might even make it back to the granddaddy of urban racing – Venice.

See also the report from Brooner, the co-founder of the City of London Race.

The fourth City of London Orienteering Race is only a few days away, and with the maps off to the printer, and the final details out, the organisation team can start to relax a little and keep our fingers crossed for good weather on the day.

I first thought of the idea of putting on a City Race in London in November 2007, after a low-key Street-O event was organised in the City, and Bankside, by my club South London Orienteers. A discussion with the race director of the Rat Race was crucial, in determining that the City of London Corporation were enthusiastic and helpful with such events taking place. Brooner, with his key experience of organising modern orienteering races and adventure races, such as the Purple Thistle and Rat Race, and structuring the Nopesport Urban League, was soon on board, and together we managed to get over 400 people to the first event in October 2008. Along the way I had organised a test event, at Queen Mary University of London, using a map prepared in Adobe Illustrator, to test the printing and map quality. Being able to use a Mac, and Illustrator, was the key motivator in producing the City of London map, as was having a lot of free time, as I took a year out to study for an MSc at City University, just up the road.

The strength and depth of experience in South London Orienteers meant we had a large number of volunteers on the day to make things run smoothly, and the first event was a great success. I should also mention the controller, Simon Errington, whose experience of sprint and urban events at the highest level was invaluable at steering us towards producing great courses for the race.

Since then the race has grown and grown. Last year we had the previous year’s Venice Street Race planner on board to design the courses – Matthias Mahr. With Venice being the biggest urban orienteering race in the world, this certainly helped with the profile of the the event abroad, and the current race director, Alan Leakey, has also been abroad frequently, spreading the message. We now have over 1100 entered for Saturday’s race, including 300 from abroad, and 100 non-club runners – likely new to orienteering. The map has spread west, south and (this year) north for each edition of the race.

So what next? Well, the City Race itself will doubtless still keep going. We were hoping to use Canary Wharf and the Isle of Dogs for next year’s race, but filming in the former area has put paid to that. There is also some potential for expanding the map east, at the expense of constricting the courses somewhat. A new format, such as a middle-distance race or Stockholm City Cup style event, might be an option.

So it’s not just the City that can host major urban races in London. Other places include:

• Isle of Dogs and Canary Wharf – an obvious location with the glamour of the skyscrapers in Canary Wharf and the river and dock features.
• Hampstead – used by LOK for a Street-O, but combining this with part of Hampstead Heath would make for a great urban event – plenty of hills to make it interesting too.
• Kingston – already mapped for a potential future sprint by Matthias.
• Wapping and Bermondsey
• Rotherhithe Peninsula
• Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park – we are unlikely to have access to all of it for many years to come as much of it is actually earmarked for housing, but there will still be a decent expanse of parkland, and the sports venues themselves, which may be accessible from 2014 onwards.
• A race at night in the City
• Extending the current map south-west to cover parts of the South Bank.

I don’t think a large race could happen in the commercial centre of London – the West End – because of the volume of traffic. However LOK do organise an annual evening Street-O event in this area.

I hope that other city races in London, and indeed elsewhere (hello Bristol!) would follow a few key ideas that we have tried to adopt for the City of London Race:

• Iconic race arenas which are not hidden away from the public. Admittedly there aren’t many passers-by around in the City at the weekend.
• Distinctive uniforms for marshals and helpers. We have distinctive red T-shirts and hoodies.
• Freebies for the aforementioned helpers. They get to keep their T-shirts.
• Nice weather. We’ve been lucky three years in a row!
• A dedicated website.
• An emphasis on photographs rather than text and maps, in the publicity.
• Visiting iconic features on the courses, even at slight expense of course quality – although we at least haven’t needed to compromise significantly.
• Use of social media. This is becoming more and more important. We have a Facebook event with over 100 RSVPs, a Twitter account and Attackpoint event. The race is also being discussed on Nopesport and is listed on Runnersworld.
]]> http://blog.oobrien.com/2011/09/06/the-future-of-city-races-in-london/feed/ 2 http://blog.oobrien.com/2011/08/18/scotland-to-host-the-2015-world-orienteering-championships/ http://blog.oobrien.com/2011/08/18/scotland-to-host-the-2015-world-orienteering-championships/#comments Thu, 18 Aug 2011 15:01:43 +0000 Oliver O`Brien http://yepsport.blogweb.casa.ucl.ac.uk/?p=2679 The IOF (International Orienteering Federation) today announced that Scotland has won its bid to host the World Orienteering Championships in 2015, in the Aviemore and Moray area.

Here’s an excellently produced video summarising the bid:

]]> http://blog.oobrien.com/2011/08/18/scotland-to-host-the-2015-world-orienteering-championships/feed/ 0 http://blog.oobrien.com/2011/05/25/summer-plans-2011/ http://blog.oobrien.com/2011/05/25/summer-plans-2011/#comments Wed, 25 May 2011 20:57:29 +0000 Oliver O`Brien http://yepsport.blogs.splintdev.geog.ucl.ac.uk/?p=2578

I’m now fixed, finally, after my fall in Sicily, and back to running again. My first event since recovering was the Bushy Park Trail Challenge that SLOW, my orienteering club, organises every year. It’s roughly a 10K run. I didn’t feel particularly fast out there – although I did sprint for the line at the end. My quads were screaming for about two days afterwards – to the point that I was holding onto bannisters walking down stairs. It’s amazing what a couple of months off does to your fitness – I was still cycling every day so thought I had a good base fitness, but I guess not.

Anyway, this summer is looking like:

• London Park Race series. Generally Tuesday evenings in June and Thursday evenings in July. I’m doing the website again so will be quite involved, although I think I’ve managed to offload the publicity this year. The Park Race events are generally quite short (5K) and finish in a pub, which is good.
• parkrun. I’ve done 47 of these over the last four years, and really want to do three more soon, to get a highly coveted (and very red) parkrun 50 technical shirt. As seems to happen often in the summer, it’s going to be a while before I can run those three Saturday 9am 5Ks – 2 July, 9 July (slowly) and 13 August are the next three free days.
• Ripon and York urban double – 29/30 May.
• Nottingham urban race – 5 June
• Lossie/Culbin double weekend – 11/12 June. A long way to travel but should be great.
• Great Wilderness munroing – 13-16 June. Might as well as I’m up there.
• North Downs Way Relay – 25 June. Don’t think I’ll be fit enough to break the record for the leg I’m on – this year at least.
• Saxons Trail Challenge Half Marathon – 10 July. Knole Park near Sevenoaks, and along to the east. Should be lovely.
• Scottish 6 Days – 31 July – 6 August. Really looking forward to this, I have ambitiously entered elite, so really need to step up my training.
]]> http://blog.oobrien.com/2011/05/25/summer-plans-2011/feed/ 0 http://blog.oobrien.com/2011/05/12/city-of-london-race-2011-preview/ http://blog.oobrien.com/2011/05/12/city-of-london-race-2011-preview/#comments Thu, 12 May 2011 00:34:38 +0000 Oliver O`Brien http://yepsport.blogs.splintdev.geog.ucl.ac.uk/?p=2557

It’s the fourth year for the City of London Orienteering Race, which is taking place on 10 September (entries open!). It’s also the fourth year that I’m producing the map for the race. Having extended the map westwards to Temple for 2009, and southwards to Bankside for 2010, this year we are moving northwards to Finsbury. There are three distinct new areas being mapped, here’s a preview of them:

1. West Shoreditch

A slightly scruffy quarter, where slightly dilapidated offices mix with “interesting” looking independent car parks. It is the surprisingly quiet “no-mans land” between super-trendy Hoxton with its hipsters and bars and the City with its financial workers – and bars. Nearby is the Old Street Roundabout, often nicknamed “Silicon Roundabout” today as the hub of London’s tech startup industry.

Hitchcock’s Reel, known locally as “The Disco Biscuit”, is a large sculpture in the centre of the area.

2. Golden Lane Estate

The most interesting part of the new map, the Golden Lane Estate is adjacent to the Barbican and also features some of the Barbican’s characteristic multi-level urban landscape and dramatic concrete structures. It is certain to be a highlight of most courses.

The local area also includes the Quaker Gardens and Bunhill Fields, a large and historic park and cemetery where Daniel Defoe, John Bunyan and William Blake are amongst those buried. The Honourable Artillery Company also have a barracks, large parade ground and field in the area, which is often used for cricket games.

3. Clerkenwell

Clerkenwell’s most distinctive feature is the 500 year-old St John’s Gate. There are also a number of narrow passageways and alleys in the area, reminiscent of the most ancient parts of the City to the south. St John Street runs through the area, on it is the Michelin-starred St John Restaurant. Located immediately north of Smithfield, London’s meat wholesale market, it is often rated as one of the world’s top restaurants and is famous for its offal items on the menu, and “nose to tail” eating. Not one for the vegetarians…

As well as the new parts of the map, the existing area is being updated to reflect the changes in the last few years. The City is constantly evolving, with old office blocks being demolished and new ones built in their place.

Photos – Top: Partial by Jeff Van Campen, Middle: By Cowfish, Bottom: St John’s Arch by Peter Gasston

]]> http://blog.oobrien.com/2011/05/12/city-of-london-race-2011-preview/feed/ 1