Comments on: WOC Middle Men 2016: BIG GPS & Splits analysis

By: Terje Wiig Mathisen

Terje Wiig Mathisen — Thu, 25 Aug 2016 18:31:43 +0000

As IvarM notes the very wide range for middle green is a real mapping problem!

In an ideal world each vegetation grade would have the same relative distance from the previous, i.e. a geometric scale.

I started writing a long article here but decided to delete it: The key idea is that we want to minimize the ratio from slowest to fastest running that is covered by a single shade, the factor of 3X for the current Middle Green is simply too large!

By: hatifnatter

hatifnatter — Thu, 25 Aug 2016 18:16:04 +0000

I see your point, but in fact it is not reduced *by* 20-60%, but reduced *to* 20-60% (of the speed in the typical runnable forest), which makes some difference. In particular, it means that on the road it should be at least “almost twice” faster than in middle green. I have not been in the forest, but what I see on GPS, on the way to 9 it was definitely not twice slower in the green than on the road.

Anyway, it is probably more the question of the planning than mapmaking — ideally you should not plan legs such that a runner cannot predict the terrain. At least, you should avoid as much as possible such situations when it can influence the results. That is why leg 16-17 is just rubbish (provided they were not given any additional information beforehand).

By: IvarM

IvarM — Thu, 25 Aug 2016 08:11:31 +0000

For “middle green” the runnability is reduced by 20-60 %, so it is already a big unpredictability there, even when the mapmaking is according to ISOM.

By: hatifnatter

hatifnatter — Wed, 24 Aug 2016 16:07:28 +0000

So, basically, the inconsistency in the mapmaking crucially influenced the results. Crap.