Discussion: US Ultralong Championships Pacheco Pass

I am the event Director for the OUSA Sanctioned, US Ultralong Championships Nov 9-10 at Pacheco Pass, CA. I would like some feedback on the idea of making the Ultralong (mass start) event available for team participation, as well as to individuals. The thought is that allowing teams will make the event attractive to other groups, including adventure racers.

I assume that only solo racers would be championship-eligible. It sounds like a great idea to me, even though I'm an adventure racer who loves doing Ultralong O races solo!

The more the merrier...

Steve, Interesting idea. I am assuming the teams would run as a group, such as in an adventure race. OUSA rules currently do not allow groups for A-meets. So the only current option is to hold the team/group competition on a recreational basis. I think I am correct on this point.

Forking, Forking, and Forking

Having a mass start implies the whole field is one group. There is an implicit (but probably not stated) tolerance of collaboration and following, notwithstanding that courses may be forked.
So there should not be any ethical/moral/justice obstacle to a group being competitive.
How the rules are written is a different matter.

OUSA rules also say nothing that specifically prohibits permitting groups at A meets. I've never seen anything in the rules that prohibits adding additional classes. This might be a good idea to attract more adventure racer / rogainers toward traditional Orienteering.

OUSA rules also say nothing that prohibits permitting groups at A meets.

Quick! We need an EGM! There's a loophole that might permit FUN!

Rule A.11.2.8 defines championships classes (all the "age" categories). http://orienteeringusa.org/rules#A11

Any other classes are non-championship (no OUSA medals). But otherwise I don't think there's a restriction to adding other divisions. Just make it clear to everyone that no one should *interfere* with other competitors in the race in any way.

Clarifying: age categories are individual competition; only these are eligible (with membership and citizenship restrictions) for medals. Groups may be allowed but are not championship categories. Clubs may award any other prizes they wish.

Recent posters are correct. The rules do not prohibit allowing groups or giving awards for them, but they are not Championship classes, so would not earn OUSA Championship medals. The class listing in the rules document is stated to be the "minimum that a sanctioned event must offer" not the only classes allowed.

Because the rules do not specifically speak to groups, it is important, as JanetT said, that it is clear they may not interfere with others, and they need to follow the rules as though the group were an individual (e.g. no splitting up).

The important thing here is to present a format to A/R teams that is attractive and simple. I think everyone (competitors, organizers, etc) would be a lot happier if teams were allowed to compete in the mass start race on a recreational basis. Just show up register your group and run. Get an award if you do well.

To implant A/R teams into the A-meet structure, the teams and the organizers would have to deal with a myriad of things such as advanced registration, OUSA membership, rankings, embargoes, GPS restrictions, juries etc. Most A/R competitors care little about that stuff.

Guess I was wrong about meet directors creating new A-Meet Classes. But my take is that we need fewer OUSA classes. OUSA in past years had Non Championship A-Meet Classes for Group Yellow and Group Orange. These classes were eliminated. I guess because they received so few entries.

Adventure racers are quite accustomed to advance registration and GPS restrictions so you don't need to go too crazy to accommodate them/us! ARers will not care whether the team category is championship-eligible. What you might find is that a few of the team navigators (like me) may be interested in racing alone in the championship. But this would be considered a great day of team training for a very reasonable price, with a little friendly competition thrown into the mix. You'd need to find someone in AR in your area to help promote it through appropriate channels.

The other question is which course you're going to send them on. I'd suggest two courses:

- The Blue course should probably be one of the options - or possibly Red, although ARers will travel farther to an event with a longer course so there may be a perception problem with Red. They'd be subject to the same time limits as everyone else. Ideally, you'd implement a time cut-off and shortcut option at an intermediate control for teams that bite off more than they can chew. (It would sort of be on the honour system but you will know when you download the SI results so it's not really on the honour system.) In adventure racing, we call it the full course and the short course. (Or the regular course and the advanced course, if we're trying to sound more positive!) Everyone who finishes the full course within the time limit is ranked ahead of those who finish the short course within the time limit.

- The other course could be simpler and shorter, maybe Orange - for teams who are just learning or have time constraints.

AR in California is for most practical purposes dead, so the issue is mostly moot. AR at the present time is not a viable recruitment channel for orienteering. This situation is California-specific, in most other locations things are different.

AR is so dead here I've been trying to recruit orienteers.

the nascent change to predominantly orienteering/ROGAINE format (replacing a-z courses with nav choices) appeals to nobody, at least west of the Rockies.

sean
DART-nuun

Sean, could you elaborate a bit please.

Mass start for Ultralong

I like this, since most (all?) of the really long races are also mass starts (goats, etc). It'd be cool to see something like the Billygoat be the US Ultralong Champs in the future.

Groups

I like this. The more the merrier. And don't limit yourself to adventure racers. Maybe some trail runners may be intrigued by a "national champs" and a longer race and pair up or something.

It'd be cool to see something like the Billygoat be the US Ultralong champs in the future.

It's already the unofficial one, at least for M/F21.

Not sure how a single race serves all age groups, though; but that may be your point (let the other UL age group champs fade away).

I'm glad to see that my own club is going to have a mass start race for the Ultralong championships this year. I wasn't aware of that until just now!

It was back in 2004, I'm pretty sure, that BAOC held what was then called the US Long Course Championships at Joe Grant. We had a heated discussion about whether it should be a mass started or individually started event. Unfortunately from my point of view, the traditionalists won the argument, and the race had staggered starts. I remember almost nothing about the race now, which to my mind is the whole point--races of this length are SO much more fun and memorable when there is a mass start, IMHO.

Last year's Ultralong Championship had a mass start too. I assume that's normal now?

I assume that's normal now?

It's in the rules that the ultra long may be a mass start, but not required to be so.

My feeling is that our national championships should reflect what we're doing regularly. SML Champs make sense because we see a lot of those. Classic Champs (begrudgingly) make sense because we see a lot of those.

But how many interval-start ultra-long races are there each year? If it's *just* the championship, then why bother with it?

But there are several other mass-start ultra-long races. Billygoat, Highlander, Blue Hills Traverse, Possum Trot, Gateway Grunt. There will be one at Tahoe. Oh yeah, I'll be running in one this weekend at Fishtrap, too.

Making the national champs similar to these makes a lot of sense to me. And using those other events (Billygoat, etc) as future championships makes a lot of sense to me, too.

It'd be cool to see something like the Billygoat be the US Ultralong Champs in the future.

If you mean that you'd like to see the Champs be a race like the Billygoat, that would be fine. If you mean that you'd like to see the Billygoat itself be sanctioned as a championship event, don't hold your breath.

Here is my theory. Sun is very strong west of the Rockies. Too much sun exposure results in a high level of brain activity (“jumpy brain”), which reduces its ability to stay focused for a prolonged period of time, for instance, during a standard-format orienteering race. Any such activity, requiring prolonged concentration, becomes “uninteresting”. That is why super-sprints with winning time of less than 10 minutes are so popular there. It is the maximum time they can abstain from checking the smartphone and twitting.

Hey, we're happy to entertain anywhere from 15 minutes to 40 hours! For sub-10 minutes, or A–Z, you'd have to ask TMHQ, Inc. I hear they love organizing events.

Thanks for all of the input. It sounds like Adventure Racing is going through a tough time in CA, but that shouldn't stop us adding a recreational group category, as long as the rules are clear.