The idea to hold a middle distance event first came to mind when mapping Norland Moor in 2010. I thought it was a shame that such a good and accessible area had not been used much in recent years. The small size of the moor and the nature of the terrain lend itself well to the middle distance format whereas traditional length courses would have needed several trips around the whole area.
Having already spent many hours wandering around the moor, planning the courses was fairly straightforward and I received excellent guidance from Alistair during the final editing process. I tried to give the competitors a mix of short/medium legs to utilise the best bits of the terrain and allow an element of route choice on the medium length legs. I am pleased to see on routegadget that competitors saw all these options and a variety of routes were used as planned.

I was mindful to keep the courses as short as the guidelines allowed given the rough nature of the terrain and the winning times on the day confirmed this was the correct decision. The roughest bits of the terrain were the 30 metre strip from the start and from the last control to the finish but it could have been much worse as most of the terrain to the north of the plateau is un-runnable tussocks and so these were avoided.

Many thanks to all helpers on the day, especially all the control hangers/collectors.

David Roome