RESULTS

If you have any comments on the events you are invited to discuss them on the Event Forum.

Please Note:

There were significant problems with the electronic results processing for Day 1 Badge (Langdale) results.
Unfortunately, no split times can be provided for this event (& hence no Route Gadget).
We apologise for the loss of these split times and hope it does not detract significantly from your enjoyment of the weekend.

On Day 2 a handful of results from early starters were not captured correctly and were missing from the first version of the results. These have now been added to the Day 2 and Combined results sets.

The currently published results are believed to be complete and accurate and no further releases are anticipated.

Controller’s comments

The late arrival of the map for the area put a very tight schedule on the planning and controlling of the event.  Chris worked hard to find courses on Langdale which provided some route choice away from line features and got most of you into the more runnable areas of the forest.  The areas of windblown were a navigational hazard, but then entering any large area of dark green without direction of run shown is a recipe for lost time, hence the note in the terrain description of the final details.

On the morning I moved control 136 west along the stream from its marked position.  This was done to avoid the waist deep water that had collected in the marshy ground around the control.  Its position was still on the stream, but placed near the end of the path Chris had cut through the bracken.  Some of you didn’t notice, some realized that the control was early, but a small number who made their own way through the bracken missed the control.  Fortunately the competitors I saw miss the control quickly relocated from the path.  My apologies to those who lost any time at 136 but I thought it prudent to move the control on the day.

Overall some of the courses may have been on the long side with conditions underfoot making them much more physical than expected, particularly for some of the junior courses where the previous weekend’s quad bike event had churned up and rutted the paths and rides they had to use.

Barns Cliff is a very different beast to Langdale.  I first visited the area for the JK back in 1987 where as an M35 I spent 193 minutes and 56 seconds completing a 9.8k course which was won by Dave Armitage in 93 minutes. 

The forest has matured significantly since then but its technical difficulty mustn’t be underestimated.  I asked Chris to get as many competitors as possible onto the west facing slope as that held the more technical challenges. 

Route gadget is a great help to see where you all went so thank you for all who posted their routes.  If you haven’t used route gadget yet then it is worth investing some time as much can be learnt, not only by you the competitor, but also by planners and controllers seeing the routes your fellow competitors took.

The contour v track choices posed by Chris showed a mixed take up, but usually the longer the leg, the more of you opted to hit the track.  It was obvious though that some of you underestimated the technical nature of the slope and made early errors from which only some learnt to take more care.  It was also interesting to look at the round or over route choice that Chris gave some of the courses.  From route gadget there appears to have been little time difference between the choices for the fastest competitors.

Control 114, the copse, was described as such because that is how it is shown on the map, even though it was a large tree by itself.  Route gadget leads me to ask the question how many of you used a bearing from the previous control, particularly those who drifted to the east and ended up on the wrong spur?  The area of unmapped bracken to the east of the control also led to further confusion for those who had drifted in that direction, a problem I hadn’t considered.

Once again conditions underfoot were not good and areas of the slopes that I had previously run across saw me hanging onto trees in order to stay upright.  Again some of the courses were too long, especially for older age groups and after the tough day on Langdale. However, many of you commented that it was tough but enjoyable.

For some teams the A course of the relay was not appropriate and I was surprised to see some of you on that course.  There are lessons to be learnt from this and I’m sure that Bill and the EBOR team will act upon all your constructive comments for next year and that the relay planner and controller will have a detailed briefing on the format to be used.

I pulled 164 on the morning because a very large bull was sitting 20m away from the control chewing its cud.  It gave me a disinterested look, but if groups of competitors had started running through the area it might not have been so placid, I wasn’t prepared to take that risk.

Finally I would also like to add my thanks.  First to Matt Speake, Stuart Hooton, Josh Beech and the other control collectors who made the job easier, especially when all the boxes had to be returned for re-programming at the end of day 1.  Without their help it would have been difficult to hit the planned start times.  Second the whole EBOR team that helped before, on and after the event and finally to Wendy who not only put up with me disappearing to control the event, but also endured the rigours of her courses.

Tony Carlyle

Planner's Comments

Well believe it or not I’ve never even competed in a White Rose before, always being busy for the Bank Holiday weekend, so to have the ‘honour’ of planning it was something of a privilege. This meant of course that I had no pre-conceptions about the scale of the task; which was probably a good thing. A number of behind the scenes issues meant that we worked to a very tight schedule; in fact the bulk of the work only happened within a very frantic few weeks leading up to the printers deadline for the maps. But in the end it all went very well with only the last minute junior course taping on day one and a control description error on day two raising the blood pressure. The decision to have a common finish was taken early, which worked well for the organisers and spectators, and also kept the event compact. The downside was that all courses had to come back up the hill to finish, which may have been a little tough on tired legs. But I hope that now the aching legs have gone (hopefully) you all have happy memories.

As always with both these areas the main problem is the lack of bridges, meaning the junior courses are exceptionally difficult to plan. On Langdale, every visit I made, the main ford was never more than ankle deep, but unfortunately Yorkshire has had a particularly wet summer, leading to the cancellation of a major horse racing event in York in the week preceding White Rose. The rain leading up to the event had led to wildly fluctuating water levels before the event but the forecast looked good and we were quite confident that all would be well, but the forecast was wrong! The heavy rain on Friday afternoon left us with a last minute ‘pitch’ inspection at 8.30 in the morning after which the decision was taken to tape the JM/W1 & 2, White and Yellow courses back across the one footbridge used on the way to the start, the clearing of this route and the full taping was still going on as the first starters got underway. The weather also played a large part on all courses, with heavy going underfoot and the transformation of many small marshes into quagmires and easy river crossings into wades. There were many comments on the windblow, but most competitors agreed that there were routes around these areas for the careful navigator. There was plenty of route choice on most legs, but both the controller and I were surprised at some of the choices taken; the easiest route from 132 to 134 was up the hill and along a path, but many runners opted to re-cross the river several more times or run across the rough marshy ground directly. Similarly neither of us expected runners to cross the bridge and wade back over the other side of the meander, rather than going up around the escarpment from 158.

Barns Cliff presents a different challenge, a very steep slope (or several) for most courses and a very complex area for the juniors. We opted to build a bridge for most competitors to access the better areas, removing the necessity of a long walk to/from the start/finish. Apologies if you had control 114, where there was an error on the control descriptions, and if you had trouble locating the top stile, which was a few yards further down the slope than indicated on the map, but these were the only technical hitches we had on both days, which were not weather related. I hope you all enjoyed the start ramp for day two, but appreciate that the finish ramp was a bit tough for some. The main lesson I’ll take away is to double-check age classes before sending runners straight up a bank like the one above 142.

On the whole, based on the comments I received and the winning times, I’d say that both days were a success, with constantly challenging courses and lots of route choice, but they may have been a little on the long side, especially with the weather conditions. However, I’ve looked at previous years White Rose and other well established two-day event results and our finish timess are well within the normal range. Thanks to Tony Carlyle for managing to control with thoroughness, efficiency and aplomb, Mike Ridealgh for taping, excellent bridge building and general helpfulness, Matt Speake for uncomplainingly running around both areas many times hanging and collecting controls, Stu Hooton and Josh Beech and the whole massed control collecting team on day two (including the whole JM5L podium). Special thanks to Brian and Cathy Odell without whom the maps would never have been ready for the printers in time.

Lastly, no thanks to the weather!

Chris Toop