Fractals and Hills No Match for Stu and Karen!
Event: Summer Street Series Event 13
Location: Waratah
Entries: 96
Weather: Fine & warm
Guest reporter: Craig Kentish
Warm conditions greeted the 96 entries that took part in StreetO 13 at scenic Waratah, orchestrated by the Roberts family. One look at the map and it was obvious that route selection was going to be crucial – the hills looked (and were) very unforgiving. It was very interesting to see how many different directions competitors started – giving an indication that there may not have been an ‘obvious’ route.
Was it best to go north and north-east and get the points on the flat even though they were a bit out of the way? Or bite the bullet and scale the heights to the south-west? Were the hills to the east less painful and better value? Fractal geometry is a branch of mathematics that can be used to model hills and mountains. Malcolm has quite a background in this area and one wonders if some of this mathematical thinking went into the setting of the event – fractals or otherwise, it was an excellent course!
Stu Adams showed the hills were merely a formality with a great win (43pts) closely followed by Arthur Kingland (41pts) and Josh Blatchford (39 pts).
In the ladies, Karen Blatchford won due to a quicker time (33 pts in 41:58), with Kim van Netten second (33pts in 43:49) and Kathryn Vaughan third (32pts). A very close run indeed!
Everyone is welcome to get onto maptalk (click on the "comments" link) and let us know what route you took and any other info you would like to provide – including unusual/funny occurrences. This is an invite for all level of competitors not just the higher place getters – ALL are welcome!
Thankyou to Malcolm and family for making this event a reality. The numbers returning each week tell us that the setters must be doing something right.
Next week we are off to Redhead for StreetO-14 with both the mens and womens comp wide open.
See you there!