My input on the courses was limited to vetoing a dodgy holly bush, keeping
the veteran women out of some bad brambles and a couple of tweaks at the
beginning. Oh, and some 'terrain modification' to flatten some not-quite-mappable
rootstocks. The other ideas were all Tim's; his comments explain his thinking.
It was a pleasure to work with Pete, Tim and the rest of the BKO team, a
pleasure to spend time controlling in a nice bit of forest, and a pleasure to
hear so many appreciative comments at the finish. Thanks everyone.
Roger Thetford TVOC, JOK
First of all I should apologise to the runners in the UK Cup classes whose
start times should have been seeded. I hope you all enjoyed your runs anyway.
Secondly I want to thank everyone who helped me with my first venture into
organising an event. Barrie Walmsley of TVOC took a lot of pressure off me by
handling the entries. The various BKO members who helped out on the day,
together with the EMIT team, also made my life much easier. I would have
struggled without such an experienced team of helpers. Thanks also to Roger
Thetford for being a calming influence on me when I was panicking about the
start times, and for guiding me through the organisation process.
It was certainly a nice day in a lovely area and maybe in 20 years or so, when
I've calmed down a bit, I might even consider doing it again.
Pete Inness, BKO
Ye Gods, but you're all fast. With few guidelines and a suggested winning
time of 30 minutes for the UK Cup courses,
previous events (colour coded is all we've had) suggested the course lengths,
modified suitably for the expected
audience. In the event, the elite competitors can comfortably beat my
predictions. For a short race (middle distance for the
new-fangled), fast accurate navigation avoiding the path network, a route choice
not normally expected at this length and
a control picking exercise came to mind as a suitable combination. Bloom Wood is
a very fast forest and is in better shape
now that I have ever seen it before.
The very short first leg on the A course was my first start location, but I
decided an extra 70 metres of fast forest and the
emergence from an enclosed start into open forest would be more enjoyable.
Bloom Wood was our original choice for the JK 2003 relays, until agricultural
considerations (DEFRA bureaucrats) meant that
car parking was unavailable. I hope that a quick jaunt through the forest showed
you what might have been.
Tim Booth, BKO