Full provisional results can be found here .
BOF official results and ranking points . (Please contact results@bko.org.uk if you see any errors.)
Winsplits can be found here
Routegadget here.
Lost Property: Red commemorative bandana- email events@bko.org.uk if you think it might be yours.
Officials Comments
Thank you to everyone for coming to our Rushall event. After our control setters went around in the rain the weather cleared up and was even sunny at times. This did not allow for the ground to dry out so thank you for bearing with the road parking which gave some of you a longer walk to the start but let everyone get away again with no problem. Underfoot on the courses was also somewhat challenging and a couple of extra temporary water features may have appeared but the vast majority did well and we have had several comments about enjoyable courses so thanks to our planner Steve and controller Alan.
Apologies for some waiting around at the beginning for those needing hired dibbers, there is always something. Thank you for your patience on that and hope your rune eventually went well. .
Jane Courtier, Organiser
Hopefully everyone enjoyed Rushall Woods in some way despite the weather. 400mm of rain has fallen in the area since I started planning and it was the first event where I have worn wellies on every planning visit! After the courses were finalised in early February, that month received 218% average rainfall and 89% of March’s rainfall average rainfall fell in the first 17 days of the month.
The main start was planned to make you think from the very beginning. The boxes were deliberately set back before you punched the start and had the whole area laid before you with all four courses fanning out across the area.
Rushall woods is nicely varied but suffers from some inhospitable areas of undergrowth which I tried to avoid as far as possible although they are expanding every year and impossible to totally avoid. Wherever possible I tried to give you route choice with at least two viable options. I had anticipated the going to be tough and the course lengths were kept down to compensate for this and the climbs – although there were clearly some very tired runners at the finish.
I was very cautious planning the Short Green to get our older competitors safely across the area avoiding the worst terrain and vegetation whilst still providing a navigational challenge. The junior courses were planned to be of the correct technical challenge within the BO guidance with two decision points on most of the yellow legs and options to stay off the paths on the Orange and Light Green to gain an advantage but with catching features.
Control 73 on the Green, Blue and Brown courses was the most talked about control. The location was added to the map using GPS so it was definitely in the correct position but I accept there were some similar unmapped patched of vegetation in the area that caused confusion. It’s a nice area to use but lacks TD4/5 control sites.
46 and 48 (23 on the Brown) were close to each other but on different mapped features, but as the depression had filled with water they looked similar but distinguishable and visible from each other. Next time I will use distinctly different numbers.
A couple of people commented on some of the features being difficult or dangerous to access due to the wet conditions. From a planners perspective it’s a compromise when positioning the control to place them where they can be accessed safely but are not too obvious and visible from a great distance. This applied to 66, 70 & 62 although the controller thought the latter too visible and moved it slightly further into the ditch on the Sunday morning. Had it not rained heavily early on the Sunday morning things would have been different as these areas were much drier Saturday afternoon when I put the stakes out and Sunday’s heavy rain had not yet been forecast.
Thanks for the feedback from everyone I spoke to at the finish – it’s great to hear what people thought – good or bad. Hopefully the courses were demanding enough but not too challenging.
Finally thanks to Alan from BADO for controlling – again I learnt a lot from very constructive feedback, and the dedicated team of BKO members who put the controls out early on Sunday morning in the rain and collected them all back in again.
Steve Waite. Planner 18/03/24
