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Shoe Science Piha Rogaine attracts 370 people

Show Profile  runningbeast Posted: 14 June 2005, 1:10 AM  
SHOE SCIENCE PIHA ROGAINE RESULTS

The 4th annual Piha Rogaine, this year sponsored by Shoe Science, was held on Saturday 11th June 2005. With a field of 370 people making up 133 teams this was the largest rogaine held in New Zealand (excluding the World Rogaine Champs, held down in the Christchurch area in 2000, which had 415 people entered from around the world).

The 6-hour event started at 10am and included about a third of the total number of competitors. Competitors were able to collect their maps and start planning from 9am.

Piha is on the west coast of Auckland in the bush-clad Waitakere Ranges. The Piha area offers great terrain for a rogaine. With vast networks of walking tracks (ranging from nice wide tracks to very indistinct trails) and plenty of hills – using the planning time to plan a good route is crucial. Some new indistinct tracks were marked on the race map as corrections, with many competitors not having been on these before. The tracks were very muddy due to consistent rain leading up to the event, but race day was filled with sun and blue sky.

As the two favourites handed in their intentions maps it looked like it would be close racing. Both had a similar course marked out but were doing the loop in a different direction. Pre race banter had the orienteering combo of Brent Edwards and Neil Kerrison (Auckland) as favourites. Both Edwards and Kerrison are in the New Zealand Orienteering team going to the World Champs in Japan during August. It wasn’t to be their day however, as they were beaten to overall course honours by Team “Train Drunk, Race Sober” made up of Stuart Lynch and Wayne Oxenham. These two are members of the “Team Subaru” adventure racing team, who have won the last three 24 hour adventure races they have entered. Lynch and Oxenham executed a fine route choice collecting all but 6 checkpoints (1520 points), to finish two minutes early, with a lead of 40 points above the second placegetters Team “Totally Random” (Dave Crofts & Mauritis Van Den Berg). Mixed open team “Subaru Adventure Mixed” (Wayne Hodgetts and Sonia Clark finished in third 10 points behind Totally Random. The orienteering duo scored the most points overall (10 more than Lynch/Oxenham) but suffering from a slightly hung over team member, finished 7 minutes late and therefore incurring a 70-point penalty to put them into 4th overall.

The winning womens open team of Debbie Chambers and Anne Lowerson (Sportzhub/GOT) ended up 5th overall 140 points behind the overall 6-hour winners. There closest competition came from Team “Chook, Chicken and Clucky” (Di Michels, Katrina Buxton and Sadie Parker-Wynyard) who finished 27 minutes before the 6-hour deadline but scored 300 less points that Sportzhub/GOT.

In the 3-hour event pre-race favourites were beaten by 60 points. The all women team of Tania Robinson and Rachel Smith (also orienteers in the World Orienteering Champs team) ended up second behind the mens veteran team of Phil White and Geoff Parkin (Pro 4 Nutrition) who scored 860 points. Finishing with just over a minute to spare Pro 4 Nutrition planned a very solid route, which fell just 660 points short of the 6-hour winners, despite having half the time. Third overall was the mixed open team of Judith Schulz and Bill Tremayne (HCG) with 740 points.

All teams made it back in one piece to enjoy the post event meal and prize giving. The highlight of the prize giving was the screening of RaceReviewer on the big screen. RaceReviewer showed the routes taken by the top three teams for both the 3-hour and 6-hour on an aerial photo or the race map. The animated dots making their way around the course caused quite a stir are the teams zig zagged around the course, showing just how far these top teams can go in the time allowed. RaceReviewer will be available on the event website with all of the teams routes included so you can see how different teams routes compared to one another. In the future RaceReviewer will allow those of you who couldn’t come to the event to have a go at planning a route by using the map on RaceReviewer and comparing your made up course to the winners routes. RaceReviewer in 3D is also in development.

The next event is in 3 weeks time at Cascades, which is at the northern end of the Waitakere ranges. Track conditions will be much firmer than Piha (not as much mud we promise!) and the scenery of the Cascades is beautiful with large kauris, dams and waterfalls.
Thank to our sponsors:
· SHOE SCIENCE, personalised service from a trained staff member who knows what they are talking about. www.shoescience.co.nz
· LEPPIN SPORT, for sports nutrition. www.leppinsport.com
· INVIEW, specialising in Merino wool garments for the outdoors, cycling and multisports. www.inview.co.nz
· WILD TURKEY BOURBON, mmmmmmmmmmmm treat yourself after a hard day in the hills!
· CADBURY MORO - the yummiest way to 'get more go'
· AUCKLAND REGIONAL COUNCIL, provider of beautiful environments!

WWW.LACTICTURKEY.CO.NZ for results and photos


Show Profile  Andrew M Posted: 14 June 2005, 3:24 AM  
So who out of the orienteering duo, was a little hungover?

Brent or Neil

Not sure who to put my money on. Both have good drinking reputations

Show Profile  Greg Posted: 14 June 2005, 3:41 AM  
Well it was Neil that added their points up wrong, good accounting skills

Show Profile  runningbeast Posted: 14 June 2005, 5:38 AM  
Want to check out the Shoe Science Piha Rogaine map and the courses that the teams took?

Try RaceReviewer at http://www.hunuahardman.co.nz/Rogaines/html/racereviewerrogaine.html

RaceReviewer is an application that lets you ‘replay’ your rogaine. You can use it to graphically display your teams and other teams courses. It will tell you the approximate distance you travelled and how far you climbed.

You can replay the course on the Race topo map or an aerial photo.

It really is good...go and check it out!

Coming soon 3D RaceReviewer!

You saw it here on www.lacticturkey.co.nz

Show Profile  Jamie Posted: 14 June 2005, 6:46 AM  
Awesome innovation, imagine when it incorporates GPS! can only be good for all navigation sports.

Show Profile  pcbrent Posted: 14 June 2005, 7:56 AM  
Nice route choice Neil, according to the Race Reviewer we did 320 m more climb and travelled almost 10 km further than the winning team! Guess thats what happens when your hungover.

This message was edited by pcbrent on 14 June 2005, 2:58 PM

Show Profile  Greg Posted: 14 June 2005, 8:16 AM  
If you haven't seen runoway on alternativet, this is bloody good as well.

http://www.alternativet.nu/ click on 'runoway'

Here you can also draw in your own course and with the splits it adds it all together.

Choose an event - (2002-05-11 Tuna Ting, klassick)
Go replay
Choose class - (H20 Elit)
Click on people want to watch (a tick means they have drawn in their route otherwise it will go from point to point)
click play.

Show Profile  Chris Forne Posted: 14 June 2005, 9:33 AM  
'Subaru Adventure Mixed' obviously picked the best route.
Shame they were a bit slower than the others and therefore didn't have time to get 103 and 46, else they would have cleaned up.

Show Profile  Neil K Posted: 14 June 2005, 1:30 PM  


This message was edited by Neil K on 14 June 2005, 8:32 PM

Show Profile  Ellmo1769 Posted: 14 June 2005, 1:34 PM  
Maybe Neil and Brent's team should have been called Train Sober, Race Drunk? I hope you didn't drive to the event Brent.



This message was edited by Ellmo1769 on 14 June 2005, 8:36 PM

Show Profile  mick finn Posted: 15 June 2005, 3:16 AM  
Brilliant! Makes me want to move to Auckland. Marvellous...Great idea to have as part of the post-race-presentation. Setting a high standard LT!
Imagine if it could interact with the electronic rogaining controls (used at Middlemarch this year and to be used next year at the 24Hour Champs). Real-time updates of leading teams, how far they've gone and so on. A spectator extravaganza. Rogaining would be a virtual spectator sport. (Or as Jamie suggests incorporating GPS further down the track would also do the trick).

Show Profile  nick Posted: 15 June 2005, 11:20 AM  
Apparently in Europe they're using GPS units carried by competitors to transmit/display their progress on the course, and the crowds are loving it. When I read about it I was reminded me of the America's Cup coverage. It is definitely an exciting prospect and could transform the sport.

I confess to knowing bugger all about it, but, I suspect it would be rather tricky to extract live race updates from a sport-ident type system. Its getting them to talk to the event centre that would present the problem - at least, in a system that can be used week in week out at different rogaine/O events... and in a format that is not prohibitively expensive. You're welcome to show me I'm wrong - I'd like to be wrong on this one...

On the other hand, I imagine that a GPS system would be independent of the race timing system, and would have the advantage of displaying route choice, errors etc... very nice. What is our satalite coverage like in NZ? And can we make GPS accurate enough to reflect the elegance and the nuance of the lines we run through the terrain?

Fascinating stuff. Well worth dreaming about and discussing because the ability to expose the "race" to spectators carries potential for wider interest in the sport and therefore more competitors... etc etc etc...

Show Profile  Jenni Posted: 15 June 2005, 1:49 PM  
Probably the ones who've got furthrest with the GPS tracking at the moment is the trac-trac system lead by Chris Terkelson (for those who know Chris). I think it's based on the same technology as mobile phones. They premiered it at the Copenhagen City Cup last year which is a sprint race series in parks in Copenhagen. I actually got too nervous watching Carsten's little line huning round on the screen and preferred to go out into the park where I could cheer and feel less helpless. They had it at tiomila this year although it wasn't shown so much on the big screen - instead filming at controls. Maybe because showing the map would give away too much to other competitors. Also it was just voluntary if you wanted to wear a transmitter thing, Carsten did and I know a few others like Simone for instance but I'm not sure if the two top men's teams did.

It's also normal at events here to have at least one control which transmits back automatically when you punch. It's not that much different than the old fashoined radio control where it was a person who radioed back though. And it seems like they need to put an aerial up some times so you can end up seeing that before you see the control.

Tractrac was also used in the micro O at the Nordics where we all wore something but only the top ranked 15 had actual transmitters. That was some of the best onsite coverage (something like 15 TV cameras altogether), and there was two hours shown live on Norwegian TV which apparently was really good. I guess part of it being good was because of the microO concept which although I still think it is a bit complicated for the general public, was pretty cool to watch. Especially when BJ gave the speaker a finger for teasing him about having to do 5 or 6 penalty loops! (And I liked it because I got less penalty loops than Carsten and wasn't so much slower at them than C - at least he was a little bit shocked at how close we were! But I wasn't very good tactically because I knew I had punched one wrong and so should have just punched the right one and then I could have missed one later without losing more which would have saved a bit of time but I found it a bit hard to consider my options with two TV cameras bearing down on me...)

I'm assuming you've read about micro O but if not I guess you won't have a clue what I'm talking about?!

Show Profile  Alistair Posted: 15 June 2005, 3:23 PM  
Radio controls over here are quite common - Sport Ident (and probably Emit too) have a standardised radio unit you can plug into a control which then transmits the times back to a base-station. The "Speaker-software" for Sport Ident can then show the times automatically so the commentator has something else to prattle about...

A friend of mine has also talked about connecting a pocket-pc (which has a phone) device to a control and using GPRS to send info back to a server then update the race info/internet...

The same friend has written a program which connects to SI/Emit which uses GPRS to transmit results/radio times direkt to a web-server for instant updating of results. So someone at home knows with a minute when you cross the finish line etc...

Apparently at the Micro-O at the Nordics they had a radio control at all 50 un-numbered controls so that the commentator could see who was screwing up etc. and how many penalties they'd have to do. They could also apparently use it to track the runners for the TV controls etc...

...as you can see there is a lot happening over here... and these things are only some of them.

Show Profile  jeffg Posted: 16 June 2005, 5:07 AM  
I may not be the only one who doesn't know anything about micro O.
I found the micro O rules for the Nordics which makes things a bit clearer.
Sounds like fun.

www.orientering.no/arrangement/micro-o_english.asp


Show Profile  jeffg Posted: 16 June 2005, 5:35 AM  
Definitely Brent was hungover. Check out the race photos, column 1 photo 7.

http://www.hunuahardman.co.nz/Rogaines/html/piha2005pg3.html

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