Discussion: 2Day Format

Congrats on a successful improvement to the event. You guys were able to get more racers out and some people more racing time.

I was wondering if there was any consideration to adjusting the setup. My ideas:
1. Move the 6-hour to Saturday and 3-hour to Sunday. That way people traveling from farther can have more time to travel on Sunday night. They will need to travel in on Friday night though.

2. Make the 3-hour later on Sat so that more people can travel in on Sat morning and only have to spend one night away from home

To follow up on brian's post above, adding here some information on how Raccoongaine 2-day event was scheduled this year:

- Saturday 3-hr started at noon and ended at 3 pm
- Sunday 6-hr started at 10 am and ended at 4 pm

share your ideas and thoughts.

I know Joe had to cut short the race on Sunday, as he has a long drive back to Connecticut. And the three folks from Montreal, Quebec, did say in advance that they were going to treat the 6-hr event on Sunday as a 3-hr, as they too, had a long drive back home (10 hrs).

I am sure the WPOC club will prepare and send out a survey to get some input.

One thing that I personally felt I misjudged and should be changed a bit is the map area used for control placement for the 3-hr course. After planning and designing, went placing ribbons for the vetter, and after that was done, felt it was "too much park" for a 3-hr course. The map was going to be 1:15000, one sheet sized 11 x 18 inches. In retrospect, maybe we should use a paper map of same size, but scaled at 1:10000, which would cover a smaller area. Or keep the scale at 1:15000 but show less map printed on the paper sheet (maybe exclude the area east of Route 18).

Your feedback much appreciated. Already got some from Laurentian Rogaine. The 3-hr course had 25 controls (21 circles printed on the map, as 4 controls were "mystery" controls).

Effective area that was usable for control placement for the 2019 6-hr course pic.twitter.com/jwMuNhVhsb

— Raccoongaine (@Raccoongaine) April 3, 2019

Effective area that was usable for control placement for the 2019 3-hr course pic.twitter.com/2H7d2nZUzz

— Raccoongaine (@Raccoongaine) April 3, 2019

I think you could alternate the 3 hour every year between N of the start and E of the start. Or throw in a third rotation that spans less of both.

I think you could alternate the 3 hour every year between N of the start and E of the start. Or throw in a third rotation that spans less of both.

I don't think the area for 3hr was too large. The percentage of points I collected for the 3hr (81%) was close to as much as for the 6hr (87%). For the 3hr I started trying to clear but could have been more efficient knowing beforehand I couldn't clear and therefore would have collected more points.

My suggestion would be to try and make the S/F as centrally located to the 3hr course as possible. The way it is now with more park to the E it almost always makes more sense to go E first and then come back W so that you can collect points nearby until it is time to return. Having the S/F centrally located eliminates this bias.

Switching back and forth isn't a horrible idea either.

I think point distribution is an interesting open question, so this is intended to be less of an argument than a thought starter, however tone won't be conveyed. Anyway:

Winning margin was +20% on the three hour and still left 20% uncollected, if the area was smaller all of the normal people could have punched more points by pulling them in tighter. It will be interesting to see if Sherpes surveys for this (Did you wish you had punched more flags?)- anecdotally, my customers have preferred when I stack the start/finish area with points achievable by the 99%ers at the expense of slightly degrading the elite experience at the fringes of the course (density too low to entice more off trail options in the fringe region, etc.) I don't have the possibility to make the park unclearable with just 50 flags (SI 9 limit) and national level participants - it's too small and that's not enough punches fit on a stick, so this is a trade off that has to be considered.

Again, champs of course should be unclearable, for more recreational ones I think clearing is a risk worth taking if it juices up the area for the rest of the field.

Granted, I am lazy and did not care the last time I cleared a six hour 45 minutes early - I felt I got my money's worth (at 2x Raccoongaine cost) - your mileage may definitely vary.

Yes I think you need to consider who to "cater to" for point distribution as well. If you make it so the majority of people can hit a majority of controls, the "elite" group will probably clear it with time to spare. If you spread it out enough that it is unclearable for the elites, the casuals will probably not hit very many at all.

This wasn't as much of a problem with the former format, as the elites all chose to do the 6 hour, which has always tended to have a decent distribution of lower points in relatively vicinity to the start. With seperating it to two days you have both elites and casuals both days, and need to try to make it interesting for both.

Any type of survey should definitely include the question "Do you consider yourself an elite/serious orienteer or casual or somewhere in between", so the responses can be properly categorized.