Month: September 2011

So, the fourth City of London Race happened at the weekend. 1109 people crossed the start line, and with around 80 helpers from South London Orienteers, almost all dressed in the distinctive red City Race helpers tees and hoodies, the event went off pretty smoothly. No controls were vandalised this year, even though we had almost 80 out on the course, and although there were a couple of mistakes on the map (including at a key section in the Barbican), and a normally-locked gate that a number of people discovered open (and ran through), no competitors raised formal complaints. Feedback on Nopesport, Attackpoint and Twitter has been generally very positive. St Giles Terrace and the City of London School for Girls proved to be a brilliant race arena. It was big enough to accommodate everyone, scenic (with the old church, the lake, and a glimpse of the Gherkin if you knew where to look) and visible to the public, some of whom had a go at a course on the day. I don’t think the flats overlooking the arena were unduly disturbed by the noise – it turns out that once the fountains in the lake switch on in the morning, everything else is drowned out.

During the event, I was able to spend most of my time out in the Barbican Estate itself, taking numerous photographs of runners at various levels and angles – you can see 156 of the best here. I only needed a few urgent trips out on the bike – to rehang a control higher, hang two in a park that only opened just before the event start, and tape off an illegal approach to a control hung by a (low) uncrossable wall. Other developing issues, such as a poorly mapped set of stairs confusing some people, were left unchanged so as not to make it even more unfair for the early runners.

We know some people ran out of bounds (N.B. The person in the photo here is in-bounds!) – through the aforementioned locked gate for instance, and one person with a headcam filmed himself running into the Barbican centre, up a couple of internal stairwells and back out onto the map. There were other similar quirks, and also roadworks that disappeared in the few days before the event, while several others sprang up. Crossrail’s and Thameslink’s impact on the City should not be underestimated, and hoarding lines seem to change on an almost daily basis. The City also itself is carrying out many “Streetscene” enhancements, gradually pedestrianising and beautifying areas, the skyscraper builders are hard at work anticipating the next boom, and Thames Water is desperate to find all those leaks. It’s not my final call, but I don’t think we are disqualifying anyone – it’s not a Championship, we don’t think these wrinkles materially affected the results enough (the notorious gate saved people at most 40m and a couple of turns), and it’s part of what makes it an urban race, rather than a sprint or a regular orienteering event where the land is more static and reliable. I’m sure that gate will be taped in future years though…

We had great difficulty accommodating the 209-odd starters on the Men’s Long course – fewer than expected opted for Men’s Short on entering. Maybe a Men’s Elite (with a hard limit of say 90, at two minute intervals, and entry by invitation from the Men’s Long start list) would be the way to go. At the same time, I dislike having a Men’s Short with a prize for the winner. People are in fact allowed to enter any course at non-Championship events like this, and many people treat Men’s Short as a course to run if they are injured, want an easy run, or consider themselves to be “not competitive” rather than as a genuine competitive course. This is why the Men’s Short course had two people who finished well ahead of the rest, and who have scored far more points than indeed the winner of the Men’s Long. So maybe an invited Men’s Elite and general Men’s Open should be the split for future years.

The event organising team is, I think, now suffering somewhat from volunteer fatigue. I know that the time spent on the event by many in SLOW (the organising club) was great – probably too great. In my case, the great majority of the time was spent on the “labour-of-love” work of extending, updating and correcting the map that I have nurtured now for over four years, exploring the new parts of the City, test-running, and running the event’s website – including a “live page” on the day that I was able to post photos to, and gather tweets from others. Only the last-minute worrying and what-if-ing of the final two weeks was the bit I would rather avoid! The traditional organising truimviate of planner, organiser and controller also spent more time than they normally would on a “bog-standard orienteering event”. It was a lot of time, but the result was a polished event – I thought the planner’s courses this year were the best yet, even the very first leg had three possible routes and an immediate decision to be taken by most competitors.

It will also be interesting seeing what happens to the event, now that it is the biggest urban orienteering race in the UK, and quite possibly the second biggest in the world after Venice. Certainly, the 300-odd overseas competitors gave the event a lovely international feel – particularly as the overseas designs of orienteering tops generally look a lot better. I have already written my thoughts on what could happen to urban orienteering in London in general. Clearly there is a certain expectation amongst both the local orienteering community and the o-tourist, for future “city style” events, where the typical run is for an hour and the route, while not necessarily being very technical, passes several of the “London landmarks” – this year St Paul’s Cathedral, the Gherkin, Lloyds of London and of course the Barbican were visited by many. But at the same time I think the format needs to be tweaked and refined to keep it fresh. Certainly we have overused the Barbican Estate now – it was used a lot in 2008 and a bit in 2009, and a huge amount this year – so I expect that this will play almost no part in races for the next few years – not least because of impact on the residents and the difficulty of negotiating access. With next year’s pairing with the Southern Championships in nearby Epping Forest the following day, perhaps there is a case for having shorter courses with target winning times of say 35 minutes – i.e. a “middle-distance” urban race which, due to the higher pace and shorter legs, would also allow less technical areas to be enjoyed more. There is also perhaps less pressure on keeping the race “technical” anyway, as the following day’s event should satisfy in that regard.

Now, back to the regular orienteering – Street-Os in London, “real” orienteering outside such as the CompassSport Cup Final and a Mountain Marathon, and enjoying the efforts of other urban race organisers – Cambridge in October should be a real treat with the college quadrangles, and I might even make it back to the granddaddy of urban racing – Venice.

See also the report from Brooner, the co-founder of the City of London Race.

The fourth City of London Orienteering Race is only a few days away, and with the maps off to the printer, and the final details out, the organisation team can start to relax a little and keep our fingers crossed for good weather on the day.

I first thought of the idea of putting on a City Race in London in November 2007, after a low-key Street-O event was organised in the City, and Bankside, by my club South London Orienteers. A discussion with the race director of the Rat Race was crucial, in determining that the City of London Corporation were enthusiastic and helpful with such events taking place. Brooner, with his key experience of organising modern orienteering races and adventure races, such as the Purple Thistle and Rat Race, and structuring the Nopesport Urban League, was soon on board, and together we managed to get over 400 people to the first event in October 2008. Along the way I had organised a test event, at Queen Mary University of London, using a map prepared in Adobe Illustrator, to test the printing and map quality. Being able to use a Mac, and Illustrator, was the key motivator in producing the City of London map, as was having a lot of free time, as I took a year out to study for an MSc at City University, just up the road.

The strength and depth of experience in South London Orienteers meant we had a large number of volunteers on the day to make things run smoothly, and the first event was a great success. I should also mention the controller, Simon Errington, whose experience of sprint and urban events at the highest level was invaluable at steering us towards producing great courses for the race.

Since then the race has grown and grown. Last year we had the previous year’s Venice Street Race planner on board to design the courses – Matthias Mahr. With Venice being the biggest urban orienteering race in the world, this certainly helped with the profile of the the event abroad, and the current race director, Alan Leakey, has also been abroad frequently, spreading the message. We now have over 1100 entered for Saturday’s race, including 300 from abroad, and 100 non-club runners – likely new to orienteering. The map has spread west, south and (this year) north for each edition of the race.

So what next? Well, the City Race itself will doubtless still keep going. We were hoping to use Canary Wharf and the Isle of Dogs for next year’s race, but filming in the former area has put paid to that. There is also some potential for expanding the map east, at the expense of constricting the courses somewhat. A new format, such as a middle-distance race or Stockholm City Cup style event, might be an option.

So it’s not just the City that can host major urban races in London. Other places include:

• Isle of Dogs and Canary Wharf – an obvious location with the glamour of the skyscrapers in Canary Wharf and the river and dock features.
• Hampstead – used by LOK for a Street-O, but combining this with part of Hampstead Heath would make for a great urban event – plenty of hills to make it interesting too.
• Kingston – already mapped for a potential future sprint by Matthias.
• Wapping and Bermondsey
• Rotherhithe Peninsula
• Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park – we are unlikely to have access to all of it for many years to come as much of it is actually earmarked for housing, but there will still be a decent expanse of parkland, and the sports venues themselves, which may be accessible from 2014 onwards.
• A race at night in the City
• Extending the current map south-west to cover parts of the South Bank.

I don’t think a large race could happen in the commercial centre of London – the West End – because of the volume of traffic. However LOK do organise an annual evening Street-O event in this area.

I hope that other city races in London, and indeed elsewhere (hello Bristol!) would follow a few key ideas that we have tried to adopt for the City of London Race:

• Iconic race arenas which are not hidden away from the public. Admittedly there aren’t many passers-by around in the City at the weekend.
• Distinctive uniforms for marshals and helpers. We have distinctive red T-shirts and hoodies.
• Freebies for the aforementioned helpers. They get to keep their T-shirts.
• Nice weather. We’ve been lucky three years in a row!
• A dedicated website.
• An emphasis on photographs rather than text and maps, in the publicity.
• Visiting iconic features on the courses, even at slight expense of course quality – although we at least haven’t needed to compromise significantly.
• Use of social media. This is becoming more and more important. We have a Facebook event with over 100 RSVPs, a Twitter account and Attackpoint event. The race is also being discussed on Nopesport and is listed on Runnersworld.