Running very fast

On a lighter note, the advent of electronic punching and the split times that are available as a result have led to the creation of a new sport within a sport – that of comparing split times. As the majority of courses have the same last-control-to-finish run-in, it is possible to obtain split times for this leg and create a bit of inter-club competition, based on this one leg. It therefore with great pleasure that Electronic Rroar presents to you the Roxburgh Reivers Lochaber 2001 Club Sprint Championships.

The points scoring and calculation have been done in exactly the same way as the event proper and involve complicated sums using standard deviation and mean times which, luckily, Microsoft Excel eats for beakfast. Points are calculated for each day, with the hypothetical ‘average’ runner receiving 1000 points. Each runner’s best four totals are then added together to create a cumulative total for the week. Barring errors, the results are as follows:

Place Name Age Class Points Total
1 Douglas Henderson M50L 5057
2 Martin Sloan M21S 4764
3 James Tullie M16A 4733
4 John Tullie M40L 4673
5 Robin Sloan M50L 4382

The astute observer will have noticed that none of the club’s top three sprinters actually managed to pull off the goods in the event proper, which obviously demonstrates something, although what is yet to be ascertained. However, (begrudging) congratulations to Douglas Henderson for proving that there’s more to orienteering than just being able to read a map. With victory on four out of the six days, Douglas has proved that he is indeed the fastest Reiver in the land and he even had the top split time on the very competitive M50L class for the final leg on Day 4. A commendable effort indeed; that tactical purchase of a new pair of lycras obviously paid off.

For club members who didn’t make it into the top 5, smug people who did (but want to see just how well they did) and those who are just curious, the complete results can be downloaded in Excel 97 format or as an HTML Web page.