Reverse Direction?

[Ken Gullins]

I'm new at this and strictly "recreational" rather than "competitive" so please forgive me if this is a totally stupid idea or if it's already been discussed and rejected (although I did search and found nothing)

Has anyone ever suggested that O courses could be legally run in the reverse direction as well? This would allow for a different view when repeating a course, which would admittedly be more of interest to "recreational" runners but perhaps not so much for "competitive" ones.

Obviously several issues would have to be worked out:
- the Developers would have to determine that it could be done technically, and that they would be willing to do any additional programming and conversion work required
- the O club hosting the event would have to authorize and request the change and then explain the change and distribute the new maps, if required.
- Results tables would also be impacted too, and the implications of that considered

Comments?

[Peter Effeney]

Ken,

Thanks for the suggestions.

In terms of repeating a course and doing it differently, this is currently supported as:
- In Scatter/Score courses, runners can choose to run to different controls or in a different sequence, in subsequent runs.
- In Line courses, Organisers can allow "Start Anywhere" (also possible for Scatter/Score), which means runners can start at a different starting/finishing point... but the legs they run will still be the same.

For a reverse line course, I would suggest that an organiser can simply publish an extra course, which is the reverse sequence of the initial event.

If this becomes a popular variant we can look at enhancing the system to specifically handle reverse runs.

Peter

[Ken Gullins]

OK, thanks.

I've done some ScoreO courses and that does indeed allow a measure of flexibility, with any control any order.
(But I don't like to hurry so I don't get them all in the allotted time, not even close; I've even been known to take a time penalty!)

These days I'm enjoying TrailO: we're not allowed to leave the trail and to bushwhack through the snow in winter conditions, which is fine with me since I'm quite happy to stay near the trails anyways.