Travel Directions

Rowney Warren is 2 miles northwest of Shefford, Bedfordshire.  The parking entrance is at grid reference TL125405.

By Road
M1 from the north:
Leave the M1 at junction 13 (A421) and turn left initially heading for Bedford. Get in the outside lane in readiness to turn right at the traffic lights a few hundred metres from the junction and take the A507 eastwards and follow signs to Shefford.

M1 from the south: 
Leave the M1 at junction 12 (Toddington) and turn right (A5120) towards Ampthill, passing through Flitwick. Just before Ampthill you will come to a roundabout at the A507 junction. Turn right here and head along the A507 east, and follow signs to Shefford.

A1(M) from the North:
After Biggleswade keep heading south until the A1 becomes a "motorway". At this point, exit before you actually get on the motorway (junction 10 A507 - Baldock North) turning right on to the A507 heading west towards Shefford.

A1(M) from the south:
Head north past Stevenage and Letchworth until you come to the A507 junction 10 (Baldock north). Leave the A1 here turning left on to the A507 heading towards Shefford.

In all cases, from the A507 take the A600 North from the roundabout west of Shefford where the A600 splits from the A507.  After about 2km take a left turn as signposted, and then turn left again into the Forest Enterprise car park.

The event will be signposted from the A600 in both directions.

By Bus
The M1-M2 bus service between Bedford and Hitchin, operated by Stagecoach, stops at Rowney Warren and is timetabled to operate every two hours on Sundays. For more information contact Traveline on 0870 608 2 608.

By Rail
The nearest train station is Arlesey, 6 miles away.  Alternatively Bedford station is about 10 miles north.  Rail services are subject to engineering works and so please check well in advance if planning to travel by train.

Parking

Parking will be at a premium, and so sharing of cars is encouraged where possible.  Please work with the car park team to help us fit in as many as possible into the main car park, which will be along a forest ride.

If you are planning to bring a minibus or other large vehicle please contact the organiser in advance.  The main car parking area is not suitable for coaches.

Enquiries

Enquiries will be open from 10:00.  All competitors who need to hire an SI card should go to Enquiries in good time.

Please note that there are STRICTLY NO entries on the day.

Dogs
Dogs are welcome at Rowney but must be kept on leads.  Please see the notes on road crossings below.

Commentary
Due to Forest Enterprise restrictions it has not been possible to provide a commentary at the finish.

Toilets
Portaloos are provided.  Please do not use the wooded areas at all.

Traders
CompassPoint will be present.

The WAOC Junior Squad will be selling both hot and cold drinks, with a mouth-watering array of home-made cakes.

Taped-off Areas

Tapes will be used to indicate the limits of the car park/assembly areas.  The area beyond these tapes is strictly out of bounds to all competitors and spectators except for competitors running their course.  Any competitor seen in out of bounds areas will be disqualified.

Clothing Transfer

Due to the proximity of start and finish, no clothing transfer or clothing dump is provided.

Spectator Controls

One spectator control will be visible from the western end of the assembly area nearest the car park entrance.   In addition, it is likely that competitors will also be in view from the bottom (south-eastern) end of the parking area.

SI Cards

SportIdent (SI) electronic punching is being used for this event.  The competitor must place the e-card (dibber) into the hole of the control unit at each control in order to register their visit.  A red light on the control unit will flash, and the unit will beep, to confirm a correct punch.  It is the responsibility of the competitor to ensure that they have punched correctly.   If the unit appears not to be working, or if you are unsure of whether your visit has been recorded, use the pin-punch, attached to the control by a cord, to punch your map in one of the squares provided for this purpose.

If your SI card has failed to record a visit to a control and the control box is subsequently found to be working you will be disqualified.
Competitors must report problems with punching at download.

The relevant parts of the BOF and IOF rules (the latter only applies to the Open courses) follow: 
BOF Rule 6.5.2 states: "The control card, electronic or otherwise, must clearly show that all controls have been visited. A competitor with a control punch missing or unidentifiable shall be disqualified unless it can be established with certainty that the punch missing or unidentifiable is not the competitor's fault and that the competitor visited the control." 
IOF Rule 20.7 states: "If a competitor punches too fast and fails to receive the feedback signals, the card will not contain the punch and the competitor must be disqualified (even though the control unit may have recorded the competitor's card number)".
Competitors who have arranged to hire an SI card should collect this from Enquiries well in advance of their run.

Control Descriptions

Control descriptions for the Junior12- course can be collected at Enquiries.  Control descriptions for other courses will not be made available in advance.  The Junior 12- course (course 5) will have both written and pictorial descriptions, all others will have pictorial descriptions only.

Control description sheets will be available in the start lanes.  Dimensions of control descriptions are included in the table of course details below.

Control descriptions are also printed on the front of all maps.

Safety and First Aid

Full leg cover is obligatory.

All competitors must visit the finish, and most importantly report to download even if they are retiring.

St John Ambulance will be in attendance to assist with minor injuries.  The nearest hospital with an Accident and Emergency department is at Bedford NHS Trust Hospital, Kempton Road, Bedford. (tel. 01234 355122).  Directions will be available at Enquiries.

A road crossing is involved at the Start (except for the 12- course).  Please obey the instructions of the start officials when crossing the road (the road crossing is part of the start procedure as described below).

All courses except the Junior12- course re-cross this road once.  Marshals will be on hand to help ensure the safety of competitors as they cross the road.  There is no deduction of time taken to cross the road, but the road crossing has been designed so that competitors can judge when it is safe to cross, and do so safely without putting themselves at a disadvantage.  However, it is the responsibility of each competitor to take requisite care when crossing the road.

No road crossing is involved on the Junior 12- course.

Complaints and Protests

BOF Rule 9 applies for all courses except the Open courses.   Any competitor who wishes to make a complaint should go to Enquiries and discuss the matter with the organiser.  The organiser will respond with a decision as soon as practicable. There is no fee for a complaint.  If you wish to Protest against that decision, you will need to lodge a fee of £5 at Enquiries and complete a form.  This will be passed to the controller who will, if necessary, convene the Jury.  The fee is returnable if the protest is considered valid.  
For the WRE classes (Open courses) IOF rules 27 and 28 apply. These are very similar to the BOF rules, with two significant alterations; the first is that there is no fee for a Protest, and the second that the Jury is chaired by the (non-voting) IOF Event Advisor.

Out of Bounds Areas

The Map will show Out Of Bounds areas by close-spaced vertical purple lines.  Any competitor found to have crossed into any out of bounds area will be disqualified.  Out of bound areas include a felled area, and areas which have been dedicated to mountain biking activities and which are permanently out of bounds to all pedestrians.  The mountain biking areas are marked on the ground by wooden posts at each path and ride entering the area.  Entering these areas will risk your own safety and that of any cyclists using the facilities, and may endanger our ability to continue to use Rowney Warren for orienteering in future.

Courses have been planned so that entering an out of bounds area would confer no advantage.

Cyclists

Some of the path network at Rowney is used by mountain bikers.  The organiser has made every effort to ensure all users of the forest, especially cyclists, are aware of the nature of the event, and that they should give precedence to orienteers (except in the dedicated areas noted above).  However, all competitors should be aware that cyclists will be out and about in the forest and take care accordingly.

Road Crossing

All senior courses involve a minor road crossing.  Traffic is expected to be very light, but the road is in use during the event.  Courses have been designed to allow runners to choose a point to cross that should allow them to cross safely without putting themselves at a disadvantage.  Marshals are on hand to assist but remember that marshals are not empowered to force cars to stop, and competitors are responsible for their own safety.

Map

Rowney Warren has been remapped by Peel Land Surveys in 2006 especially for this event.  The map is 1:10,000 scale, with 5m contour intervals and is A4 size.

Items not mapped:
Jumps/ obstacles that are used by the mountain bikers
Tripods/hides.
Minor paths

The map includes a legend on the front.  The map legend is reproduced in the samples on display in the assembly area.  This is to allow competitors to familiarise themselves with the colours used on the maps, which will be laser printed.  Maps contain boxes for the purposes of pin-punching in case of failure of a SportIdent control unit.  Control descriptions are included on the maps.

All maps are overprinted and pre-bagged.  Courses 1, 2 and 3 will have 2 parts. The map is printed front and back with controls for the first half of the course on one side and the remainder of the course on the reverse.

Please note, that in accordance with guideline 8 of the WRE Guidelines, previous versions of the Rowney Warren map must NOT be used on the day of the event by competitors nor officials before the last start.

A copy of the previous Rowney Warren map will be on display at the British Sprint Championships at Milton Keynes on Saturday, 20 May 2006 as well as being downloadable from the Rowney Warren event website.

Drink stations

Drinks will be provided at the finish.  The middle-distance nature of the courses means that water will not be provided on the courses.

Starts

There are two starts.  The main start is for all courses except the Junior 12- course.  A separate start is provided for this one course.

Main Start
The main start will be a timed start.

The main start will include a pre-start and warm-up area.  Competitors are reminded that they must not cross outside the designated pre-start area, the edges of which will be taped.

Competitors on the Open Men's and Women's courses must pick up their numbered bibs in the pre-start area in advance of call up.  Wearing of bibs is compulsory.

All competitors must clear their SI dibbers at one of the clear stations provided, in advance of call-up.  Call up will be 4 minutes ahead of starting.

Once called up, competitors will be led across the road.  Please take care when crossing the road and obey the instructions of the start team.

Loose control descriptions will be provided in the -3 start box. (Dimensions of these is given in the table below, see Course Details section).

Maps of the area will be on display in the -2 start box.

Elite Competition Rules/Seeding/Start Times
The Open courses are World Ranking Events (WRE) and therefore these two courses will be held under IOF Rules and where these differ from BOF Rules, the IOF Rules are the ones which apply.
Start times for these courses have been allocated based on UK Cup results for 2006.
Competitors have been seeded into 6 groups according to their position in the 2006 results (up to and including the BOKTROT event on 30th April), with the group containing the top competitors starting last. Start times within each group have been drawn at random.

Competitors based overseas have been placed in the group appropriate to their IOF ranking. UK competitors who do not appear in the 2006 UK Cup results have been placed in the first starting group.

Late Start procedure
Competitors who are late for their start should present themselves to the main start.  The start team will do their best to provide a start slot for them but there may be a delay before it is possible to allow them to start.  Their official start time will remain as on the published start list.

Junior Start
The Start for the junior 12- course is in the vicinity of the finish and car park area.  This will use a punching start.  Competitors will pick up maps as they start.  Maps will not be available to view in advance.

Shadowing
Entrants in the 12- course will be non-competitive if shadowed.

Competitors wishing to shadow juniors on the 12- course must complete their own course before doing so, otherwise they will be declared non-competitive.

Course Details

Courses will close at 14:30.

Rowney Warren is an area of fast, runnable, and well-contoured pine forest with significant valley-spur structure.  The bracken has started to grow, especially in the lighter areas of the wood, but it is not expected to have a significant impact on running speed.

Due to the nature of the terrain, climb on the M-Open and W-Open courses exceeds the 4% guidelines but do not exceed 5%.

Finish

The run-in to the finish will be visible to spectators and will be taped.  All competitors should punch at the finish even if they have retired.

A back-up recording system will be in use at the finish for competitors on the M/W Open courses.  Please assist the Finish team who will need to record your bib number as you finish.

Download and Map Collection
All competitors must hand in their map immediately after they finish, by placing it in the box corresponding to their course.

All competitors must report to Download.  Please remember to return any hired dibbers at Download.

Map return
Event officials will allow the bags of collected maps to be retrieved after the last starters have started their run.

Prizes

Prizes will be awarded to the top 5 in each of the Open courses, top 5 of the remaining senior courses, and the winners (male and female) of the junior courses (M18-, W18-, and MW12-)

Spot Prizes
A number of spot prizes will be awarded.

Prizegiving
Prizegiving will be held near the enquiries tent at about 1:30 pm.

Results

Results will be displayed in the assembly area as the event progresses.   Results will be available on-line after the event on the WAOC website (www.waoc.org.uk).

Officials

Jury members not yet decided.

Acknowledgements

Simon Errington, Steve Knight and FE,
Peter Guilliame and ECG, BOF and IOF,
Jordans Cereals CompassPoint