DQ the cheats

[IanDarkpeak]

But if the organiser - or their appointed marshals don't enforce their own rules who will?

...and there in lies the problem. Where as we don't like rules and want to run free. the rules are there for a reason, whether to protect the RO or the runner, if you wish to race you follow the requirements of the RO, end off.

Fail to do so and the RO MUST DISQ that runner for every ones sake.

If you must run with no kit do it on your own time.... simple

[dominion]

That's the point isn't it?

So are we disqualifying the competitors who have been told it's okay not to carry kit, or the RO's / marshalls who aren't implementing the rules correctly?

[IanDarkpeak]

So are we disqualifying the competitors who have been told it's okay not to carry kit, or the RO's / marshalls who aren't implementing the rules correctly?

Good point Dom

[Rob Furness]

So are we disqualifying the competitors who have been told it's okay not to carry kit, or the RO's / marshalls who aren't implementing the rules correctly?

Clearly you can't disqualify a runner for following a marshall's advice. However, imagine if a runner that hadn't got the correct kit and was allowed to run anyway then managed to get into difficulty and as a result died. This could cause major problems for everybody involved. Hence the need to enforce rules properly. The RO's need to adopt a stance and stick to it or the whole thing is pointless.

I also disagree with the fact that faster runners are more likely to be experienced and therefore don't need kit, this may be true in some cases but certainly not all.

[fellgazelle]

Ban em from training and let the fatties catch up!

Ey up,
that's a bit discriminatory isn't it?
Some of us less horizontally challenged persons can't run for toffee either!

[stevefoster]

Ey up,
that's a bit discriminatory isn't it?
Some of us less horizontally challenged persons can't run for toffee either!

Apologies, didn't see you up there mate;-)

[Richard Head]

Sounds like a job for the Forum vigilante group, i'll just get some tar and feathers

[L.F.F.]

There is no way that carrying a slightly more weighty bumbag is going to effect someone's performance so I disagree with the cheating thing. Also the front of the field spend far less time in the hills than the back during a race so arguably have less need of all the gubbins. They will almost certainly know the route better and overall be more experienced of the hills too. The overriding issue is eff all to do with cheating but all to do with the race organiser's responsibility to ensure that safety issues are covered and, should someone die during a race, no blame is pinned on the race organiser. If they say carry it, just carry it.... but its nothing to do with cheating.

I'm a bit confused how it can't have something to do with cheating. Whatever other issues are involved, if someone carries less than the specified kit, what can their reasons be other than to save weight? And how can carrying a less weighty bum bag not affect performance? I know that I'd rather run with less weight than more. If small amounts of weight difference don't have an effect, why would Inov8 include the weight of their trainers in their name, and why would 'lightweight kit' be such a big deal?

Seems odd to say that it basically has nothing to do with gaining an advantage.

[zephr]

You do also have the somewhat more techy and annoying part of the kit check discussion when you start to consider what is and what isn't construed as a waterproof/map/etc.
Do Montanes featherlite trousers consitute a pair of "waterproof trousers" when in fact they aren't taped and are in fact only marketed as "windproof"? what happens when you ask a competitor for their "map" and they have a page torn out of the Manchester A-Z. Its still a "map"... right?
before you know it, regs are going to have to include minimum hydrostatic head requirements on waterproofs etc. No matter how much you try to regulate it by having kit checks, there are always going to be people who try to get around it by bending the rules to make things as light as possible, will it come down to competitors getting through the checks by being good at arguing their case?

However, as IDP was saying, one of the main attractions of this fellrunning lark is that we have minimum rules and maximum fun. Its a bit of a dichotomy when you consider that to have a race, you MUST have rules, because if everyone made up their own rules, it wouldn't be a race, or even recognisable as a race, so some kind of framework is evidently the best way forward.
I suppose its really down to the very competitive souls who are annoyed with getting beaten by the guys who by "cheating" have a weight advantage by not carrying anything, when they are required to do so. I agree with the "cheating" comment- all things considered, if you are required to carry something and you don't its most likely because you feel you can run faster without it rather than any other reason. Implementing the checks though would be another issue entirely, and before you know it you have an arms race to see who can have the lightest and filimsiest (and most probably by necessity, most expensive) bit of gear, which is really annoying, and actually the reason why I quit Adventure Racing, but thats another story).

Where was I?

Ah yes, the lovely thing about fellrunning is that if you want to go for a run in the hills with nowt more than a vest and a pair of shorts, you are very welcome to. If you want to race, there has to be, by necessity some kind of rule base, and that means that people should follow them. Should we DQ the guys that dont carry all the stuff? Or should we just feel very morally and physically superior when we beat them in a race when we carry the gear and they don't?

I don't know the answer to this as a whole, but I for one will be training that much harder in order to beat the ones who don't carry kit so that I can feel morally superior.

[Latege]

I must be a bit dim but I simply don't understand why people enter a race then refuse to abide by the rules - in this case carrying kit when it's required. The next thing there'll be people saying “I didn't go via checkpoint x because I didn't feel like it/couldn't see the point. But I wasn't cheating.” If you enter a race, abide by its rule. If you don't like the rules, don't enter the race.