Discussion: What to enter?

I was wondering if I could have some quick guidance of what level to enter for a regional 'o' event at Ogden Water. Someone suggested I should enter JW5S but it's like a foreign language to me! I normally run Light Greens (coming somewhere nearish the top but I've never entered a big event) as I'm still reasonably new. I'm 17 years old. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks.
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MuddyFox

To 'translate' the system - the higher the number, the more difficult the navigation. So a light green is level 4 (would be JW4), and "JW5S" (S for 'short') roughly translates to a green course - so as difficult navigationally as the terrain will allow, and about 4 to 5km in length.

My advice would be to enter what you feel confident on - if you think a green is still beyond your navigational ability then a light green (in this case JW4) is probably best. As it's a bigger event, there'll probably be a stronger field than the nearby local event.

And you shouldn't have to decipher things for much longer - most 'regional' events are switching over to the colour system to make it a bit easier to understand what's going on!

I find the colour system incomprehensible. I like words like hard, moderate, easy.

I agree. Western Australia uses H1-5 (the hard courses navigationally, with H1 the longest), M (moderate), E (easy), VE (very easy). Pretty easy to come to terms with. I have no idea what people are talking about when they mention coloured courses... Are the colour codings the same in different parts of the world?? ( I don't even know the colours for the eastern states of Oz)

And, of course, here in the US we have the oxymoronic Yellow course described as "Advanced Beginner".

As long as newcomers understand that terms like "Easy" and "Very Easy" are for the average experienced orienteer. For someone with no experience in navigation, or of running in the bush they might find the "Easy" course pretty challenging.

At least Easy is obviously easier than moderate. How do you guess the difference between red yellow green blue brown etc?? Is it the order they appear in a rianbow?? If so, which end do you start at? (Yes, I'm aware brown doesn't feature heavily in most rainbows)

Hey Alex - Odgen Water does have a couple of tricky bits so if you're confident on Light Green it might be best to stick with JW4 for this one - you'll probably be ready to move up to JW5 very soon.

If you're running light greens now then you are also good enough to start training with the Yorkshire Junior Squad - I'll pass your e mail address on to my Dad and he can put you on the mailing list if you're keen? That will help with the jump up to full difficulty (JW5) too.

Are the colour codings the same in different parts of the world??

Well I know they're different between the UK and US. For example the Brown course in the UK is a long difficult course, in the US it's a short difficult course. The equivelent of the UK Brown in the US would be Red, but in the UK that's a long(ish) moderately difficult course.
Very confusing!

Hmm, thanks for the help - I've entered at JW5S and I'm just going for the experience and hoping that I'll be okay. Unfortunately I read this too late to see everyones useful advice otherwise I might have entered the level below! (JW4)

Hey ho ;) Like I said I'll go along and try my best. My running's fine, it's the navigation that's slowing me at the mo.

Becks - that sounds great :)

Thanks again for all the help!