We've been following the thread, maybe should have added our input earlier...
It's true that we didnt have any experience in organising a Skyrunning event or even witnessing one, they approached us and we were honoured by this. In hindsight taking an existing "grass routes" race that has so much character and a very small budget into a more corporate style event was clearly going to be difficult. It's true we had expected and asked for guidance especially in course marking as we have no experience. Initially my concern was that people would feel overly confident in going onto the hill with no proper navigation skills and therefore put themselves in danger. Hence insisting that people had excellent nav skills. Last year we provided nav skills training and we will do that again next year. This year we organised 2 free training weekends so people had the opportunity to understand that this race should not be taken lightly.
Our strategy for course marking was to set the course on the Friday or early Saturday before the race, then have all signage collected by the sweepers, with a backup collection by marshals and a further sweep by me (RO). Unfortunately weather conditions were particularly grim on the Friday and the Saturday with very poor visibility. This hampered both the deployment and the collection of posts. Hence posts not being exactly where they should be and sweepers missing them. I have swept the course twice since the race, last time was 13th July (I would have been out since then but Ive been ill, I'll be out again over the weekend hopefully if I am fully recovered).
We have asked if people see markers to report them to us, photograph them, send us exact details where they are and I will personally go out and collect them. We have also told people that we will "reward" them for notifying us by sending a goody bag to their address.
We do not, at all want markers left on the hills nor do we want any litter, unlike other organisations we put our initials onto our markers so we were accountable, because we do believe in being responsible for our actions. There are many markers on the hills with no names on them and we didnt want that. We are all volunteers who organise V3K and most of us also volunteer for litter clean ups too.
This was our third year organising the route, first year it was just ten friends, last year we had approx 30 runners. This year 75. The race was started because we love the route and has continued because we want others to love the route too. I can't express enough just how important these hills are to us, and how very sorry we are for this situation to have occurred.
Let me reiterate, we are really sorry to have caused everyone so much upset, this was not our intention at all. If you want to talk to me about any of this in private or have seen a marker please contact me on
[email protected]
Kirsch