Discussion: USOF Terminology

What we used to call classic is now "long". I think we need a more creative name than "extended", maybe "ultra" or "mega". If anyone has ideas, please start a thread with them

IOF sprint/USOF sprint (sprint champs)
IOF middle/USOF middle (was short champs)
IOF long/USOF long (the "long" day on a middle/long weekend)
IOF ultra long/USOF ultra long (was long champs, pig calls "extended")

USOF classic (no IOF analogue. If not dumped (my recommendation), call it "USOF classic champs". (the one this year in Laramie)).

JMHO.

If we're stating opinions, I like "Extended" for what has been known as "Long"; the Red and Blue courses might be called Ultra Long, but the others generally aren't that much longer (and White and Yellow are usually standard length). "Extended" covers both situations.

I believe changing what's always been known as "classic" to "long" to be in line with IOF will take some re-education, in a lot of places to reach everyone. Changing Short to Middle wasn't that complicated. But Long has been "classic plus" for as long as I've been orienteering.

There are ultra-marathons in running, swimming, biking, etc. Ultra = longer than the normal long. People know what ultra means. "Extended" isn't used in any other types of race descriptions that I know of.

In my opinion, we are better off being as consistent with the IOF as possible. It's less confusing in the ultra-long run. People will adjust.

In sum, I think Randy's suggestions are good.

Randy - you lost me. Is there a difference between USOF Long and USOF Classic? If not what is the difference between them? Maybe give the M21 winning time for each? In Canada we never have had an extra long champs; we now just have championships in Sprint, Middle and Long; the latter 2 being equivalent to IOF short and classic (and the first being a new discipline).

I'm totally confused about the "classic" thing, too...

Ultralong is obviously the way to go. Who's ever heard of an extended??

I'm with randy/tom/boris on this one. seems like a no-brainer.

to answer the "classic" question, it has typically meant two combined days of almost-long races.

Randy - you lost me. Is there a difference between USOF Long and USOF Classic?

USOF long in my mind has a WT of 90 min (strict lower limit) for M21. USOF "classic" may come in anywhere from 60-85, usually about 75. Those are just my working definition/rules of thumb; USOF may have official proscribed winning times for all I know, but in actual practice a USOF classic seems to be a 75 min sort of thing in general.

'Extended' is dreadful, but 'ultralong' isn't great (though far better). 'Endurance'? 'Marathon'?

Per the USOF Rules:

winning time for 100-pt ranked runner, in min.:
   Classic "Long" time diff. % diff.
Blue 75-80 145 70 48
Red   60-65 100 40 40
Green 50-55 75 25 33
Brown 45-50 60 15 25

Okay, so maybe there's aren't a lot of Brown course runners on AP, but there are a lot of Brown course runners in the US. I wonder if they'd recognize a course that's 25% longer as "ultra". Long, yes; but hardly ultra.

Solution -- make the Green and Brown courses longer (closer to 40-50% longer than standard) and name them all "Ultra", or find another term. Extended does it for me.

I suspect that the green and brown courses are not too long so as to have a course that anyone who can regularly finish a brown can still finish. A better solution to that is to do what Janet suggests and indeed make them longer (brown 85 minutes and green 90-95 seem right), but still offer one shorter course at 50-60 minute length (for the brown course 100 point ranked-runner) which is explicitly not a long course and explicitly not a US championship, but just a course, probably an A-meet course, for those that don't like long courses but still want to enter the meet.

(Nit-picking: you mean 'close to 100% longer than standard': the regular course length, not the 'extended' length, should be in the denominator. 145 minutes is 93% longer than 75 minutes, while 75 minutes is 48% shorter than 145 minutes.)

On the nit-picking (which I'm usually pretty good at), you're right feet; I have the concepts in my head, but don't always have the math right.

I do remember one (and maybe only one) US Long Course championship where shorter advanced courses were also offered. I think this was back when there were still "B" classes in addition to "A" classes for age groups...

A little more work for the course setter (in planning).

Correcting my math (just for the record):
Blue % longer = 93
Red % 67
Green % 50
Brown % 33

>In Canada we never have had an extra long champs;

That should change....

As long as it's not called Extended. Dundas Valley would work - but then the 86 World Cup was kind of like that for me!
(Or we could use Chadburn/Long Lake)

I like the consistency between USOF and IOF terminology.

Can this name change now drive the stake into the heart of two-day Classic A-meets in the US?

Besides the winning time differences, the races have their own flavor:
-Middle emphasizing technical navigation
-Long emphasizing route choice

Not to denigrate any of the USOF "Classic" courses I've enjoyed over the years, but often a Classic is not enough technical navigation to be a Middle, not enough route choice to be a Long, and a lot of junk to connect the rest.

On a related note, if a weekend of US orienteering now looks like a Middle, a Sprint, and a Long, why go with a two-day combined time? Economize on awards?

We are an overly-award-happy sport (a can of worms for some other day). I think we quickly recognize the winners at each event separately (ala' JJ: "Here are all the first place winners, second place winners, third place winners." Applause. All done in 5 minutes). Combining a Middle, Sprint, and Long in one overall award values the Long, and to a lesser degree, the Middle, over the Sprint. For example, a 10% win by time in Long, Middle, and Sprint are not all equal in a two-day combined time format.

USMAOC has changed our format for our A-meet this year from two-day classic to Middle-Sprint-Long. We plan to recognize the medalists separately.

And, since the cadet mess hall doesn't make its own branded peanut butter anymore (the best O-prize ever, in my opinion), we are toying with offering a choice of awards:
-usual trinket (eg sports bottle)
-donation on medalists' behalf (same "trinket" money, ~$1.50) to the US Team (probably in our case to the WOUC team or the JWOC team). Over three races, 25-odd categories, 1st-3rd place, it seems like a better use of a few hundred dollars than buying more trinkets.

That award format is courtesy of Orienteer Kansas, not my invention, although I have been an avid promoter of it. Winners are recognized last.

we are toying with offering a choice of awards

Put the medalists on a podium and a web page, but donate the actual cost of actual hardware to the homeless or cancer research or something. I wish I could do something beneficial with the economic output that was used to manufacture my hardware that sits uselessly in a box gathering dust. JMHO, of course. (another can of worms, for sure :-))

You could borrow a page from alpine skiing and call it Super Long or just Super-L.

"USOF long in my mind has a WT of 90 min (strict lower limit) for M21. USOF "classic" may come in anywhere from 60-85, usually about 75".



Before there was an IOF Short or Middle there were only two forms of orienteering at the World Championships - Classic (M21 winning time 90 minutes) and Relay. And technical navigation was allowed in Classic orienteering. I must say that I thought the idea of "Classic" orienteering was universally understood. Reading this thread its clear I'm seriously mistaken.

I tend to trash A-meet awards before even leaving the meet site (or I don't bother picking them up by leaving before the awards, but this doesn't always work because they sometimes get mailed...), so I'm all in favor of killing the awards. (I think I kept my two US classic champs first place medals, but I'm not sure. Certainly every other award except Billygoat shirts and a piece of rock glued to a can lid (New England champs) which is so weird it had to be kept has been trashed.)
Edited to add: actually, some Hudson Highlander awards got kept too, because they were unusual and appreciated (a Japanese wall hanging, a framed photo), as did a GHO NAOC award (nice framed photo) and the mugs from the OME relay champs in 2004. And even a water bottle from last year's US champs. Seems I like useful awards. But I'd be even happier with lower entry fees and no awards, since useful is in the eye of the recipient.

Eoin, some of the problem is in translation. For example, it's close to impossible for cmpbllj to avoid technical control sites at West Point since that's all there is; the question is on the emphasis. A good long (traditional classic) course is definitely more likely to have a route choice leg or two than a middle.

The people who usually win awards typically don't want them. The people who rarely win awards cherish them. I've personally long maintained that all awards should be edible.

umbrellas, duffels & gloves = great awards (have to pay more for them though...)

How many umbrellas can feet use? But you can never have too much dessert.

I thought that it was pizza that one can never have enough of; isn't that like "Swampfox's law," or one of them? And feet doesn't need any of that gear; even in the frozen north of the ROC he mostly runs naked.

Hey Randy,
Maybe I'm just out of the loop. Is there actually a proposal out there to put USOF definitions in line with IOF? That would be great, it's needed. How soon would this be going through?

Some changes were effective this year... Notably renaming what we used to call US Long Course Champs, "extended". Mainly this discussion started because the name "extended" is bothering some people (not everyone). Personally, I don't think its a good name to generate media interest (what the **** is "extended"?). Maybe another term like "ultra" or "extra long" might be better? Marathon was suggested but I think it would be a perversion of the term "marathon" since "extended" courses are considerably less than marathon length.

>I don't think its a good name to generate media interest (what the **** is "extended"?).

They same could be (and is) said of the term Rogaine.

Super L would work for me.

Skimming the foregoing, I make it six people who dislike "extended" versus Janet who thinks it's good or at least adequate but doesn't mind at least one other option. For my part, I don't expect poetry but "extended" sounds very bad to me. I think "ultralong" is the best option that's come up so far, even ignoring the fact that it's what is used elsewhere, e.g. the Swedish Ultralong Champs szurcher ran in last year or the commonly used "ultramarathon".

Maybe it should be "Tall", "Grande", and "Venti", although, frankly, this doesn't really make sense to me.

What does make sense to me that terms like "Ultra", "Extended" etc are all relative to your baseline, which is itself, as far as I can tell, arbitrary. There is not some Platonic form of orienteering.

Anyway, I'm not sure what my point is as it relates to this thread...

Plus-size.

I like Super L.

How about "Ultra L" or "Ultra O Champs" ?

The terminology doesn't bother me as long as we decide what it is and all of the clubs use it. I really dislike arriving at an event to find out that what I thought was one type of course length is now another and I'm signed up for something I really didn't want to do. BUT even more important to me is the discussion to awards. PLEASE don't do away with awards for the kids. They love metals or something like that. They don't have to be expensive but something that they can take home and show off to their friends. Both of my kids could not wait to show off their metals to their friends when they were young(m/f 10, m/f 12 and maybe m/f 14). They still have all of their metals, of course all they are doing now are collecting dust in their old bedrooms but they are still here. So PLEASE come up with an award for the youngsters. We need to keep them interested and coming and I think that an inexpensive metal will definitely help some.

We'll certainly keep offering awards, but feel free to turn them down or return them. USOF and the clubs spend a lot of money on awards and I'm sure we'd appreciate reducing that expense. If you have US Champion medals (the newer ones in use the last few years) or Flying Pig medals (the ones with the Pig on them) that you no longer want, you can turn them in at this year's Pig, and assuming they still look like new, we'll happily re-cycle them.

I agree with the folks who don't like "extended", but "ultra" doesn't seem appropriate either. The Hudson Highlander, GHO Adventure Runs or 24-hr rogaines *might* be considered to be "ultra" versions of orienteering, but a Long-O course just isn't that long compared to some other navigation events - or other types of events that a growing number of orienteers participate in, like 50K trail runs, marathons, 24-hr bike races, adventure races, etc.

Add me to the chorus of voices suggesting adopting IOF standards - Sprint, Middle, Long, Ultra-Long.

"Extended" - that REALLY doesn't do it for me.

What to do with the (north american 2-day total-time) "classic" distance that is somewhere between middle and long? Good question. I suppose I'd just call it "Long" and ignore the fact that it's actually shorter than IOF long.

Or, given the Scandinavian heritage, you could follow Swix's lead and use:
"Special Long" - for races a little shorter than Long
"Long" - for IOF Long
"Extra Long" - for races a little longer than Long

And, that would offer up a whole bunch more possibilities:
Special Sprint
Sprint
Extra Sprint
Special Middle
Middle
Extra Middle
Special Long
Long
Extra Long
Special Ultra-Long
Ultra-Long
Extra Ultra-Long
There you go, 12 choices ought to give everyone plenty of flexibility to have anything they want!

Sprint with Special Sauce, Sprint with Black Bean Sauce, ...

What is the winning time and typical distance of the Swedish Ultra Long Champs?

25-28km?

3 hours?

jj said: I've personally long maintained that all awards should be edible.

I read that he long maintained all awards that should be edible :)

The rules say the Swedish Ultra Long Champs should be 24.0 km (150 min) for M21 and 15.0 (110) for F21.

OK, that does seem long enough to use the word "ultra".

Hey Randy,
Maybe I'm just out of the loop. Is there actually a proposal out there to put USOF definitions in line with IOF?

My impression is that such a proposal already passed, and people are reacting to the fact that it did not align with IOF usages. I could be wrong that "Extended" (and perhaps other terms) are presently de jure USOF usage, however. That said, "Extended" seems unlikely to be accepted as de facto usage no matter what proposal USOF passes. Of course, I could be wrong about that also. What do I know?

And JJ is right about awards. The best one I ever got was a cake at the Bubba Goat. It really is the perfect award in many ways. Everyone stays for awards, shares in the experience, it doesn't gather dust, and as I would have consumed calories anyway, there is less waste as compared to other sorts of awards.

The way to avoid waste in awards is to give something useful that would have been consumed anyway. I'd love a box of Cheerios or something. People could still save it if they wanted to.

Extended simply sucks. When I see that word, I'm more likely to think about the spam I find in my inbox every morning and what is purportedly can "extend" for me.

Ultra is fine with me. I knwo what it means, and I'll probably necver run one. But at least I know what it is.

Why do we, orienteers, need to make things so complicated? USOF < IOF, so go with IOF

Why do we, orienteers, need to make things so complicated? USOF < IOF, so go with IOF

The IOF does some things that I'm not sure I'd want to inherit, but for things, that, quite frankly, don't really matter (and another recent thread on clubnet comes to mind as well), why not simply inherit from the IOF and be done with it?

You differentiate when it matters and what you are doing is better. Otherwise, inheriting previously invented wheels seems the best way to stick to the KISS principle and save time for more meaningful pursuits, which seems a Good Thing to me. That is one of my biggest criticisms from my time on the USOF Board, seemingly endless debates on trivial matters.

Well, I guess I'll find somewhere else to pointlessly editorialize for the rest of the afternoon ...