Discussion: CAOC Madnaess

I noticed on the CAOC website a race series that features a style of course they call "Winter Madnaess". I am setting a training course in that style as described on the website, but the details of the design are not evident. Will anyone help me to fill in the details?

How many controls are in traditionally in the box?

How difficult are the controls in the box?

How far apart are the controls in the box?

How many mandatory controls are set before the box?

How many mandatory controls are set after the box?

Do you have any advice for tweaking the design to produce a mass finish?

Thomass taking over the world, I see. Based on my limited experience of the format in its homeland, the answer to most of the questions would be "It varies." IIRC, the typical box contains 7 or 8 controls and the number of mandatory controls before or after the box can vary upwards from zero to as many controls as are available. No doubt, someone from southern Ontario with more experience designing such events will be able to give more detailed advice.

Yes, we imported our master Thomass course setter (Oivind Naess) after he learned the craft in southern Ontario. We liked his spin on the format so we renamed the format Madnaess.
Funny that you ask about mass finishes because the January race to which you linked came down to a photo finish.

I will find one of my series maps to answer your other questions. If I don't get a chance to scan it, I'll bring it to MN this weekend.

I take it that "Thomass" is the more traditional name for the format. What is the etymology of that word? Popular in Ontario?

expresso: Thank you.

The training event of topic will occur the evening of October 20th in Minneapolis. Drop me a line if you want to attend. This invitation is open to any avid orienteer.

Etymology -
either that tank engine who works for Sir TopEmHat, or...
some kid in a Scandinavian o-literature/movie.

The short answer is that it varies but as the founder of this race format I prefer that it not vary too much because the last thing you want is people waiting to learn the rules on a windy cold day in the windy city.

>How many controls are in traditionally in the box?

7 - since the highest handicap you can get is 6. therefore making all people get at least 1.

> How difficult are the controls in the box?

set 1-2 easy controls for beginners. most of the course is green or higher difficulty.


> How far apart are the controls in the box?
Depends. You the box (or boxes) to get the extra distance needed to have the mass finish. So if you are aiming for a 60 minute finish time and the elites can run 6 min/km and the older women 12 min/km the extra controls in the box need to be about 5km long. So spread them out to that ideal extra distance

>How many mandatory controls are set before the box?

The fewer the better or you end up with a congo line of madNAESS in the snow. I like races that start with the box and then race from there.


>How many mandatory controls are set after the box?
Depends if you have two boxes. if you have two boxes it is nice to place it late in the race so few controls after it. SPlit them early with one box then split people again.

>Do you have any advice for tweaking the design to produce a mass finish?

You need to know the speed of your racers. Determine the winning time and then figure out long many km the best in your variety of categories can run in that winning time. Then make the box the size necessary to get that mass finish.

Something we have been doing in Ontario with this (we've got 15 years of this race format now) is a central control in the box. That must be visited after getting max 2 other controls in the box. So lots of out and back. This makes the options of splitting up greater. In fact, if it is does at the start it makes for a good spectator area.

Hope this helps

Does "Thomass" refer to the whole race structure or just the use of boxed controls?

And why is it called "Thomass"?

The founder speaks....

central control in the box. That must be visited after getting max 2 other controls in the box.

So, when in the box every third control visited must be the central control?

Setting tradition and convention aside, I prefer "Madness" to "Thomass" for marketing reasons.

Hammar will know better but I think the THOMASS name has something to do with the first letter of the cities (or the clubs) in the area where the format originated- Toronto, Hamilton, etc.

If I remember correctly, it's something like:

Toronto
Hamilton
Oakville (?)
Mississauga
Alternative
Snow
Series

The bit of history of THOMASS. I was the coach of the Ontario Jr. Team and we were at one of our autumn training camps (we had 4-5 camps a year) and we decided that we should organize 6 to 8 mid winter training sessions to be ready for the spring races in the U.S. Then we thought why not make some money off it and make a race course that all categories could run on. So I remembered a short distance race I had run in Skelleftea in Sweden that used the box format so we went with that. We added in the handicapping so that our top juniors would push to the finish knowing they had to run faster to beat some of the masters men and women (that had a shorter course).

So we had the race format and just needed a name for the series. The junior team had a bit of a cult following to the movie 'Thomas the Orienteer' out of Sweden. So we took the locations of the races and the Toronto-Hamilton-Oakville (or Oshawa)-Milton (or Mississauge) Alternative (oar Adventure) Snow Series and THOMASS was born.

I know that this race format was used at barebones last year and will kick off the NAOC week in BC next year.

I agree that from a marketing perspective that this form of racing needs a different name. For example, we use the name O-Cross for the farsta one-person relay format. I'm not sure what a good name would be but AZ suggested.

The Handicap Orienteering MASS start (or THOMASS). ;-)

>So, when in the box every third control visited must be the central control?

Yes but the central control is not considered a box control. This way a lot of extra distance can be created without placing controls in a large area.