Discussion: Good time to get your airline tix for COW

6 - 8 weeks ahead is usually a good time to find decent airfares. Note, too, that the early reg deadline is coming on Feb 11.

This year's COW has terrific venues with modest climbs and really good course setters. With no US Champs on the schedule, our 7 NRE's in 9 days could wind up being the premier US event of the year. Come join the fun!

Details on the COW webpage


(Morgan Territory, site of COW Stages 1 and 2, in March, 2016)

If the venues and course setters are good, why not seek to designate part of it as one of the US champs?

For the first weekend, it's about format. The schedule has a Middle, Middle, Middle on Saturday, Sunday, and Monday.

The second weekend has the right format: Sprint, Long, Middle on Friday, Saturday, Sunday.

But since registrations are already open and pricing already set, it's likely a budget issue. My guess is that GCO is using one of its "free" ranking days for one day (paying local OUSA start fee), and paying full national sanctioning fees for the other two days. So for one participant over three days, that's $11.50 (= $1.50 + $5 + $5) going to O-USA.

For championships, it's $10 per event, so that's $30 per person going to O-USA.

That's $18.50 per person difference. At last year's National Meet in California, they had ~130 participants each day. If you do the math, that's a $2400 cost difference between as-is and a national championship.

Obviously, they could seek a US champs and change prices and such, but it's a bit late to do that.

Given that OUSA has no bids yet for Nationals (though Mike Minium indicated that OCIN might consider, and is investigating a possibility), I would think that OUSA could be persuaded to forgo the higher fees (since OUSA won't get them if there's no Nationals). If the Nationals attract any additional participants compared to what GCO would have had, that's a win for both the club and OUSA, financially at least.

The higher fees pay for medals.

@Pink_Socks: The rules for one-day "free" NRE's prohibit clubs from having one in conjuction with regularly sanctioned NRE's.

I wondered whether anyone was going to ask us (i.e., BAOC and GCO) whether the final weekend of COW could be made the Nationals. I imagined the issue was that there wasn't enough time left for all competitors who would want to participate in the Nationals to make arrangements to do so. The point about fee structure is also a good one. If we were asked officially, we'd certainly think about it. As those final three days are being hosted by GCO, I am not in a position to guess how they'd feel about it.

A decade and a half ago, I organized an event using leftover awards, typically from categories that hadn't had three participants some year over the previous decade or so of events. I rebadged them pretty simply and inexpensively. Voila, an event with awards for the winners of all categories.

Anyway, sorry for the hijack of the thread. The woods look lovely in that photo.

The rules for one-day "free" NRE's prohibit clubs from having one in conjuction with regularly sanctioned NRE's.

That's right. Thank you for correcting me.

The math would be $1950 instead of $2405.

Whoever made the rules could change them, if it were deemed important enough. There are a lot of tradeoffs to consider, like whether it's worse to have a short-notice no-medals championship, or no championship at all.

Given the abundance of Spring NREs, as compared to the almost complete absence of them in the Fall, IMO, the last thing we should do is push for having Nationals in the Spring.

I think I speak for many of us who would gladly forgo a medal if it meant we could race in a championship.
That said, the new format says that the SML champs are only elite champs; the masters' champs are 2-day classic. And there seems to be no such event upcoming. I think this would be the first year in US o' champs history that there wasn't a championship for (at least a small subset of) older people.
Sad.

Oh, and sorry for the continued thread jack. Terrain & maps look like lots of fun.

The Nationals were supposed to issue awards for masters categories as well as elite, I thought. Masters was the main champs for the 35 and overs, in a Two Day Classic format, but those who preferred SML could still compete at the Nationals in age categories, and be recognized.

I agree that forgoing medals would be fine. Or, a fridge magnet, or a leftover award rebadged, or the good old slice of wood. But the event is more of the fun.

Awards, yes, but not championship titles. At least that was my understanding.

There may be events brewing that we don't yet know about (he said mysteriously). Still, I'm starting to wonder if the free NRE scheme will turn out to be something that sounds good in principle, but that turns out to have unintended consequences. (At least without some tweaks.)

OK, I thought titles for both (Nationals champion in F45 vs Masters champion in F45), which admittedly would be confusing, but it's been a while, and I can't find it in the rules on the OUSA website, which show last update ten months ago before the new champs were approved, I think.

Best wishes to the event brewers, whoever they may be.

In it's final form, Nationals is supposed to have US Champs competition for ALL age categories (though I'm less than certain about 35+).

Yes, Nationals (SML) has championships for all age categories. The Master Nationals (2 day classic format) has championships only for age categories 35 and above.