Discussion: THREE day A meets

I really enjoy the new formats used for some A meets. Sprint Middle and Classic or Long. The one thing I Don't like is having the first day, usually the sprint, on Friday. This means many people have to miss a day of work, and therefore perhaps, give up a vacation day (which I'm sure they would use to go to another O meet).
At the West Point meet last spring, there was a middle on Saturday morning, a SPrint in the afternoon, and a regular length course on Sunday.
I enjoyed that a lot. Kept everyone around and hanging out throughout Saturday. In the end I'm sure we did about the same amount of running as in a typical 2 day A meet, so I certainly wasn't tired.
I hope clubs would consider that format in the future.

I can certainly understand that sentiment on the East Coast where most competitors travel Saturday morning (or late Friday). However, for those of us who generally have to take off Friday anyway to get to an A-meet, the 3-day format is rather nice as long as the sprint is late enough in the day. I think there's room for both.

From a meet directors standpoint, the main problem with packing the sprint into Saturday is that you either have to use the same map as the middle or run two completely separate meets on the same day. The first option may work well in some cases, but I would much rather take an extra day and run on a true sprint map than run a sprint on a ISOM map blown up to 1:5. I've tried the second option and it's a LOT of extra stress on the meet crew (except possibly for the 4-5 clubs that can put together two completely separate sets of volunteers).

Good point Jeff. However, with the recent rise in the cost of transportation, whether driving or flying, it makes sense to seek out more orienteering for any given trip.

The West Point format (Saturday Middle + Sprint; Sunday Classic or IOF Long) certainly keeps folks involved, with little dead time. But I hope clubs will still offer (1) Friday afternoon events for those of us that have the ability to take the day off, (2) Model courses and training maps which can be used anytime during week leading up to the Meet, and (3) consideration of some kind of fun, informal O training or competition on Monday morning, for those that don't have to rush back home. I used to love those CIOR events given on the Monday after the Georgia Navigator Cup meet, and am sorry those have been discontinued.

A couple of comments here:

1. Friday races are not particularly good for school children, and thus for families with school children, even if the parents are willing to take a vacation day. If we're really trying to attract juniors to the sport, we need to do more than just talk about it.

2. I didn't take a head-count, but from casual observation at the recent NAOC weekend it appeared there were about twice as many people in attendance on Saturday and Sunday as there were on Friday.

I would suggest a guideline like no weekday A events during the school year. Summers fine, the more the merrier.

I'm with chitownclark: If I'm paying for a plane ticket, I want as many events as possible -- more bang for my buck. My personal preference would be to have the extra event on Friday afternoon, so that I'm not completely wiped out by having two events doubled-up on Saturday -- but that's not a deal-breaker.

I would suggest a guideline like no weekday A events during the school year.

I strongly disagree. If you can't attend all or part of a meet for whatever reason, that's unfortunate. But please don't limit the fun for the rest of us who don't have kids and can take a vacation day here and there. Juniors (and their parents) are still free to attend the weekend events. I don't think anyone's suggesting that we have weekday events instead of weekend events... Besides, it would be a logistical impossibility to impose that kind of restriction, since school-year calendars vary widely and some areas (such as around Denver) have year-round schedules.

I agree with fossil and coach. I didn't see the point in paying for a plane ticket for Holly to go to the North Americans because she would have missed both sprints on Friday (she has 5 classes on Fridays) so she would have missed half the competitions. It was too bad they put the sprints on Friday because I am sure she would have liked to have taken part in the sprint finals. The first sprint was in the early afternoon, so even if she had skipped her later classes she wouldn't have been able to make it.

When there is a model event or a sprint on Friday and I don't get there until late Friday night, I always feel like I am at a disadvantage. Others have seen what the map and terrain are like, but I have not. (Maybe that's why I always did so poorly in Anza Borrego!) I understand wanting to pack as much as you can into a weekend, but those of us who have to travel from the west coast usually have to leave on Thursday afternoon to make Friday events. This involves missing two days of work or school, something we can only do once or twice during the school year.

I would suggest a guideline like no weekday A events during the school year.

Now that's a bit selfish, I may suppose... if someone may not have fun, should others' fun be restricted? is that American? how about that constitution of the land of the free, the liberty and pursuit of happiness?

Now, putting Championships on weekdays, that's a somewhat different matter. The Federation would presumably wish to sanction Championships held at such places and times that the access for the majority of the membership would not be unjustly hindered.

If children are successful at school and are willing to catch up on what they would miss by taking a day off here and there, why not let them orienteer on weekdays? Give them some responsibility...

In order to attend the U.S. Championships and North American Championships orienteering festival, I took a week off of my first year of university. High school and college students weren't as over-scheduled back then, though. At least that's my impression.

I think the question is less "which is better?" than it is "which is better for whom?" I'm confident that no option will please everyone.

Rather than have USOF dictate what is done, let the market (of competitors) decide which meets to pay for and attend, and allow the USOF sanctioning committee to prevent sanctioning something bizarre (a Tuesday US-Champs in out-of-the-way North Dakota).

Perhaps what we really see here are the death throes of the "two-day combined" (or three-day combined) championships. I would argue that a Sprint, Middle, and Long distance competition are as diverse as the 3000m, 10km, and half-marathon races, and unless you are specifically giving an award for a "pentathlete" across disciplines, recognize individual race winners.

I see some exceptions to that:
1. Back-to-back sprints (same day) seem to me to have two acceptable formats: qualifier and final (time in final determines winner) or combined total time.
2. For "overall best US orienteer (across disciplines)," we already have a system: the USOF rankings.
3. Something like the recent North American Championships, where combining times (2 sprints, Middle, and Long) is appropriate for determining the "best overall North American orienteer at this time (2008, specifically Sep)" which will conceivably differ from a 2008 North American rankings (if such a beast existed). We want runners to "peak" for certain key events.

Ultimately, people will "vote" with their attendance, and clubs will look at their participant lists to decide if they are drawing enough competitors/making enough money to warrant their efforts and/or whether they are drawing the "right field" of competitors to justify the name of the meet/championship. If the fictional Aleutian Islands O-Club hosts the North American Championships and the Eric's, Mike's, Jon's, Will's, Ross's etc don't make it to the Friday races and are ineligible, has it really identified the best N.A. orienteers?

I was recently surprised to read in ONA about the committee examining the US Championship structure making the "US Two-day combined Classic (aka Long)" a sacred cow.

In my own little piece of the world (USMAOC), we will vote with our attendance & our A-meet:
1. Our 2009 A-meet format is again Sprint, Middle, Long on Sat & Sun only (we may consider a Friday afternoon non-sanctioned, bare-bones training/model event), because that is what is best for our cadets to host, and it is the format that we would most like to see in other A-meets.
2. We can occasionally get away on a "school day" to compete, but when we miss school to compete on a non-weekend, we literally have to justify this to and receive approval from a General.

allow the USOF sanctioning committee to prevent sanctioning something bizarre (a Tuesday US-Champs in out-of-the-way North Dakota).

1994 US Champs: Wednesday-Thursday in Alaska (with another A-meet day on the Monday preceding).

I'd also point out that college-level student/athletes in sports like baseball, football, volleyball, etc., do miss a fair bit of class to travel to their sporting events. I'm sure it takes extra effort and coordination for them to stay caught up with class work, but they manage it.

Missing one day of class for a North American Championship seems like a no-brainer. Other sports are MUCH worse. In my 2nd year of university, I missed 25 days of class in one semester for ski races*.

* And, no, I would not recommend taking it to this extreme.

I like the 3 meets/2 days format, though I think the concerns about logistics and maps should come first. Sometimes we'll end up with a Fri-Sat-Sun setup and some of us left coasters will miss out... or if it's important enough we'll make it happen. I don't think a standard format is the way to go here.

As for classes, I don't understand the hesitation that people have about missing some. If the sport is important to you, you can make it work. A championship meet during the week? Yeah, duh. I routinely missed classes as a DIII softball player to play the schools from down the road. You just have to balance your priorities.

Personally I don't much like having a sprint on the same day as a middle (the 2-races-on-Saturday scenario). Sure, more o' for the bucks, but I like to have a little down time, some relaxing in my expensive hotel room and a leisurely shower & meal. With mulitple races, there's not much time left to do anything else (and I don't mean shopping, geocaching, or museum visiting). So the weekend becomes one of lots of driving, usually late on Friday night and again on Sunday evening, run, run, sleep, run. I love orienteering, but I prefer it to be a bit more spread out.

Re. weekday events -- it's always a choice individuals have to make, whether missing school or work is worth it. I agree that the market has to decide. I personally enjoyed the Wednesday-Thursday US Champs in Alaska; if you were going to that event, you had to spend a lot of time getting there anyway, so it made sense to make a week of it.

When I first starting orienteering, I missed a week of graduate school (including teaching a couple lab classes) to attend a couple meets in the East (Troll Cup & Intercollegiates/Team Trials, if I recall). I wasn't even very good, but I thought it was worth it. And luckily my advisor, being a charter member of Orienteer Kansas, agreed.

One thing I will say about students missing classes to go to orienteering... all the examples people have cited about making it work seem to be for sports where there is some support structure present at the school. If you are on the football team and miss class to go to a game, everyone understands. If you are an orienteer and you are doing it, I hazard to say you are on your own.

There is a lot to be said for an athlete having peer and adult support and understanding at school if they are going to be missing class. I don't know if the novelty aspect of orienteering, which might afford some tolerance, equates to the adulation some other athletes expect and receive.

As for me personally--I kind of like orienteering on weekends. My vacation is dear, and it is hard for me to expend it on ordinary A meet days, especially if it is just a sprint. If it is a championship, it is different, but I think some of the discussion above implies a more generic policy.

Even for an instructor who's never heard of orienteering, I'd think that saying you were going to miss a day or two of class to attend the "North American Championships" or the "US Championships" would carry some weight. Especially if you've already established a reputation as a conscientious student.

And that's if you even bother to ask for instructor permission. My recollection from college is that one could skip class at will -- without even being noticed, in some cases -- and then get notes from a friend to catch-up. Really, this isn't brain surgery and it doesn't take an act of congress or official approval from the Dean. (Unless you're at a military academy, I guess...)

You wouldn't believe the cheetah flips we go through sometimes to get cadets to meets! We are lucky to have great support for our cadets on the JWOC and WUOC teams (to include getting Jordan Laughlin out of mandatory summer training this past summer). And although the average college student may not face this level of approval, weekday meets do make it challenging for anyone in a position in which their school (or job!) expects them to be around on weekdays.

I can also see where Peggy's coming from - especially for those of us with little kids, the tempo of a 2-day, 3-race event can be pretty crazy. Too bad we don't seem to have some of these meets on holiday weekends. (Aren't most of us likely to be orienteering anyway, given the opportunity?)

I know I personally look forward to the summer events such as the 1000 Day or PNWOF, and I hope more of these events will be held at a venue like this summer's Tahoe meet. Not only did we experience a lot of great orienteering over several days, but also the option to stay a little longer and enjoy the many other adventures Tahoe has to offer. Definitely the type of vacation we are going to be looking for in the future!

We actually had lower than usual numbers for the Team Trials this spring that were held over Memorial Day Weekend. We surmised that it was because it was a holiday weekend and many folks had family obligations. That may not in fact be the reason, but I doubt we will decided to do another holiday weekend A event.

Just out of curiosity, what is the standard format for orienteering "A-meets" elsewhere in the world? Are the majority of orienteering competitions that are comparable with American A-meets 2 days, 3 days, or something else? I've only ever run 5 day orienteering competitions in Europe during the summer months so I'm not aware of how events that don't obviously require vacation time from nearly all competitors are organized.

If competitions elsewhere in the world do regularly exceed the 2-day, weekend only format, how has the addition of another day, (or more) been received/ dealt with by competitors. Arguably this may be less of an issue, especially in places like Sweden where its my understanding people typically have about a month's worth of vacation every year, but knowing how its done elsewhere might give us some more perspective in the US.

The other drawback of scheduling meets around holidays is that plane fares tend to be higher at those times.

Hmm... As a college instructor it is interesting to note how many orienteers think missing class is not important. Anyway, I greatly prefer meets during holiday weekends. I only get two personal days during the school year, which means I can only go to one meet back east, unless a meet happens to fall over a 3-day weekend or my spring break. Luckily, the Georgia Navigator Cup and the Intercollegiates happen to fall into this category, so Ithese are the meets I will be attending.

I don't think important races should be held on the same day.

For one, it is a disadvantage for older competitors w.r.t. to recovery time. While competitive advantage among competitors in sports is the whole point of the race, I'm not convinced that recovery time is an interesting factor to be included in the test.

I don't follow sports all that closely, but some guidance could possibly be gained by asking the question -- would they hold a championship 1000m and 5000m race on the same day when it is reasonably expected that some runners would compete in both? I don't know the answer to this question, but that is where I would look if I wanted to pursue this question further.

If competitions elsewhere in the world do regularly exceed the 2-day, weekend only format

They do.

in places like Sweden where its my understanding people typically have about a month's worth of vacation every year

Most of not all of Europe has at least four weeks, by law.

Despite the long vacations the Swedes have, most Swedish races during the non-summer months are on week-ends or holidays. Swedish Championships are the only exceptions I can think of, when some of the qualifying races are held on Fridays. Of course, most Swedes do not travel more than an hour to get to a competition, so it's a very different situation than flying 3000 miles for a weekend.

As small as Sweden is, I count 11 days of National meets going on this weekend on their schedule. That's like 5 A-meets in one weekend...for a small country with only ~10 million people.

New Zealand generally uses the 3-day weekends for its major events, and the national championships (sprint, middle, long, relay) are on the 4-day Easter weekend.

There ARE exceptions relevant to this thread - this month there's a long weekend (public holiday on the Monday) and the organisers are also putting on two middle-distance races on the Friday. Be interesting to see what proportion attend the Friday.

I'm not convinced that recovery time is an interesting factor to be included in the test.

Coming from a background in bike racing, I find recovery time a very interesting thing to test. The problem is that multi-event days don't test it properly. In a true stage race, the competitors must finish each stage within a certain percentage of the leader or they aren't counted in the general classification. That's not true when you put two completely independent events on the same day.

I'm glad I have provoked some comments on this topic.
One of the reasons I brought this up is I know what Sam and Ross go through to try to get time off on Fridays, I think Ross has borrowed vacation into next year already. I know that if I worked as I had years ago, I would be reluctant to take days of my measly 10 days of vacation.
Being an older competitor, I can honestly say I don't mind 2 runs in one day, and I would certainly train to do that if it gave me advantage over my competition.
I suppose having youngsters could make this better or worse, but I seem to remember mine wanting to hang with their friends at the meet site forever.
The lack of venue for middle and sprint together is certainly a valid problem, as is workers to work both courses.

From a 'preparing our top racers for the international level' perspective having two races in one day is good. WOC sprint and middle both had their quali and final on the same day. For it to work in North America one needs venues either close together or together to get it to start to work. If the venues are too far away people arrive and leave at different times and you don't get that sense of community at the race site. At other times the venue may not be suitable for sprint and we end up with a course that is too simple for the sprint standard. Sticking around at an event site depends so much on what that event site is like. If the gathering spot is not at the finish line then there is less interest. HEY NORTH AMERICA WHY DO WE HANG OUT AT OUR CARS ONLY? This year at barebones they did it right. They had decent terrain for both sprint and middle and a nice place for people to gather (Canmore Nordic Centre) that had food to purchase, trails to hike on, mountains to photograph, lots of results sheets to stare at, published the split times,...you get the picture. There was stuff to do for the entire family between races (including roller skiing). People were comparing routes and splits and didn't feel rushed and enjoyed the time outside (or indoors eating burgers).

On a related note Golden Horseshoe Orienteering will be hosting our next Golden Leaf Orienteering Fest (GLOF) in 2010 on the Canadian Thanksgiving long weekend in early/mid October (our last GLOF was the very successful 2006 NAOC). The tentative schedule is:
Friday model/training, Saturday sprint and middle, Sunday long and Monday once again will feature a mass start O-Cross (farsta). All venues will be very close together and within the city of Hamilton limits. What we were wondering is whether people would prefer middle first, then sprint or sprint first then middle on Saturday? We promise to have a 2006 NAOC finish line like atmosphere with lots to do between the sprint and middle races. Two lines of thought here. Those that don't like sprint don't have to leave as early to travel to Hamilton if the middle starts on Saturday afternoon. Or, those that don't like sprint still have their afternoon off to explore Hamilton's more than 100 waterfalls.

> However, for those of us who generally have to take off Friday anyway to get to an A-meet, the 3-day format is rather nice as long as the sprint is late enough in the day.

What? Where are you travelling from? I have yet to find an A-meet I couldn't get to on time by leaving Friday after work.

However, to make it to a Friday sprint race I do have to leave Thursday evening and thus take one day off.

That is typically not a problem for me. I can get to CA A-events leaving after work on Friday from the east coast.

That said, it is a killer to be back at work on Monday morning, but c'est la vie.

CA as California or CA as in .ca? ;-)

I think it's best for most events to confine the racing to Saturday/Sunday. Travel constraints often mean late arrival on Friday evening and departure soon after racing on Sunday. A Friday race (e.g., sprint) is justifiable for a big race like North Americans, but for regular A meets, I think it's not a great idea.

I think having two races (e.g., Middle + Sprint, or vice versa) on one day is just fine. If you travel across the country, getting in more orienteering is definitely a plus. Racing hard twice in one day is definitely tough. But, hey, if you don't want tough, you can do one race only.

Hah--if we are talking CANada, all bets are off. I imagine leaving on Tuesday to get to a weekend event in Whitehorse, or Timmins. :)

In the U.K. the only major three day event during the year is the J.K., which is on a three day holiday weekend. All others are either 2 days, or 1 day, or in the summer. The only folks who routinely miss school/work for events seem to be squad members and other enthusiasts who travel abroad for competitions.

As a teacher, I used one of my 4 personal days to attend the North Americans; as a parent I took my kids out of school. I did it because it was the North Americans, but I would never have done it for an 'ordinary' A meet.

I live in Seattle so I can't leave after work on Friday to get to a meet in the East. With the 3-hour time change working against me plus the 8-9 hours of flight + airport time, I need a whole day just to travel. So we usually leave late Thursday morning for a meet that has a Friday race and early Friday morning for a Sat-Sun meet.

I live in Seattle so I can't leave after work on Friday to get to a meet in the East.

Red-eye flights can work well for some event venues. There are lots of flights that leave Seattle between 10 p.m. and 1 a.m. and arrive somewhere on the other side of the country in the early morning.

This only works if:
1a) you can sleep on the plane, or
1b) you can take a nap at some point between leaving work and arriving at the start line the next day, or
1c) you can function okay after missing a night of sleep
...and...
2) you can get a pretty simple routing, with just one or two segments (and a short layover if two segments)

That's great if you can do that, Eric! I sure can't. It's been many years since I could survive an all-nighter, let alone compete the next day.

A lot of this depends on each individual's situation and preferences. I typically take off on Friday before a meet anyway, so I can get on the road early. I prefer to arrive at the hotel or campground with time to pick up my packet, settle in, have a nice dinner, etc and still get a decent night's sleep. So leaving a bit earlier on Friday to do a sprint doesn't bother me at all. I really like three events over three days instead of three events on two days, but lack of recovery is an issue. Probably not so for many others.

I understand a bit more about kids in school, although around here you can get several days to a week off in order to show your animals at the fair, take a trip to Disney World, etc. So I'm quite sure a case could be made for missing one day at a time to compete in a national level event.

Eric can survive much more unpleasant travel experiences than most of us can imagine.

> 1c) you can function okay after missing a night of sleep

Another way to look at it is - if you have a bad race, there's always something to blame. :)

I wrote earlier...

"This month there's a long weekend (public holiday on the Monday) and the organisers are also putting on two middle-distance races on the Friday. Be interesting to see what proportion attend the Friday. "

There are around 200 names for the weekend days. There are 126 for the Friday races.

Those 126 entry fees have gotta be attractive to most clubs, looking for some easy revenue. I wonder why more clubs don't capitalize on the Third Day Option?

Clark, isn't the fee structure the same for 3 events in 2-days vs. 3 events in 3 days? Weak argument :).

Digging back in the thread a bit, Sandy wrote:
"We actually had lower than usual numbers for the Team Trials this spring that were held over Memorial Day Weekend. We surmised that it was because it was a holiday weekend and many folks had family obligations. That may not in fact be the reason, but I doubt we will decided to do another holiday weekend A event."

I actually very much appreciate events that are scheduled on holidays/3 day weekends. For those of us traveling from afar, that's one less vacation day to burn and a more relaxed weekend.

Which is just another example of what this thread has indicated, that is, no matter what you do, it will be good for some and not good for others. Whatever you do, someone will think its great, while others will be put out.