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29 November 2007
This will be the last entry in the Diary. Not because there's nothing to
say, but because we're changing the way medium we use to say it. From this
day, the
Blog will be the medium.
Updated through
Blogger.com, but published on our own website, the blog provides us with
a mechanism that allows more than one person to update the content, plus it
automatically publishes to our RSS feed
 .
The features, ease of use, convenience of updating and reduction in effort
required to maintain the site make this move a no-brainer.
24 April 2007
Well, as you can see, your webmaster is not a great diarist - for the same
reason, I've never got into blogging, but that's just me.
Another CTR season has come to its end, and sometime in the quiet of winter
I'll do the annual site spring-clean, rolling last season's pages to the
archives, starting fresh pages for the new season, and checking for broken
links and the like. I'll probably ask some folk to review our pages for
relevance and accuracy of content, and we'll see what can be done to improve
the quality and ease of use of the pages.
With regret, Leslie and I will not make it to the prize giving this year -
we will be in Venice, having arrived from Greece, preparing for a brief
sojourn in Croatia, before continuing on to France. We're really looking
forward to our brief escape to sunnier climes. We may think of you ;-)
To return to the diary theme, I have to admit there was one time when I was
sorely tempted to write a piece, following the North Island Championships.
Like many of you I'm sure, I was appalled and outraged at the treatment of
CTR competitors and officials at this event. I refrained from doing more
than to publish Eunice's report. For one, I wasn't there, and second,
nothing I would have said would have helped.
It is with this background in mind that I would like to express our
heartfelt thanks to the
Ruahine Endurance Club, exemplary hosts of the National Championships,
for the care and dignity with which they treated their CTR colleagues. By
simple courtesy, care, and respect for others, you've done much to redress
the harm that was done to relations between the CTR and Endurance
disciplines. Thank-you.
Congratulations to all our competitors at Nationals - well done place
getters and qualifiers - commiserations to those who vetted out or had to
withdraw. Thanks to all who support the club - without you there could be no
sport.
Until next season, good riding one and all.
30 October 2006
Spring weather is always unsettled, but this October seems to have been
exceptional. The rain and winds have been bad enough, but the timing has
been appalling, hitting hardest on the weekends. Wainuiomata postponed and
then cancelled, and Karapoti only saved by the shelter afforded by trees and
valleys. For all that they had a very soggy ride, the riders had the better
of the conditions compared with those at the ride base.
Photographically, Karapoti was always going to be a challenge. Forests
absorb a lot of light making ambient light photography of moving subjects
difficult. On Sunday the light was lower again with the overcast weather. Of
course, with horses we don't really want to be using flash - with the noise
of the wind in the treetops, coming across a man in a raincoat was scary
enough for some.
The rain however was the real problem - with conditions unrelentingly damp,
it was impossible to keep the camera gear dry. Electronic equipment tends to
react badly to moisture, and as my walk progressed it became increasingly
difficult to get reliable shots - but that's life.
Amazingly, everyone had a great day - Karapoti is a wonderful venue, and
perfectly suited to sheltering riders from wild weather. The photos aren't
many, and the quality isn't great - a lot of shots just didn't make the cut,
and a few that did wouldn't have in other circumstances - if you saw me on
the trail, but can't find a photo, I'm sorry - it just wasn't meant to be.
But, Waitarere is coming up next, so there's always another photo
opportunity.
20 August 2006
Well, it's been a while. The first newsletter of the new season signals it's
time to have a quick review of the website, update committee names, publish
the ride calendar, and advise about subscriptions. A bit of a spring clean.
There's not long to go now until the first ride, and training is in earnest
- I myself did 12 kilometres on foot today in the hills above Terawhiti - I
suspect I'd have been vetted out on return, but it was a great way to spend
a few hours.
27 February 2006
After missing all the Wainuiomata rides of last season, finally we made it.
The Pencarrow Station is a magnificent ride venue, with access to
spectacular country and trails, and with wonderful views of the Wellington
Harbour and Cook Strait.
Several enthusiastic groups of local riders swelled the Novice class, making
one of the bigger fields of recent club rides. It was great to see them
there, and we hope that some will get to the remaining rides of the season.
The "out-and-back" trails worked really well for the photographer,
presenting opportunities to catch the earlier starters in both directions.
There are now photos on the Yahoo site - accessible from a link on the
Photos page as usual.
Since newsletter 74, it's proven difficult to secure GPS mapped trails. CTR
riders have been naturally reluctant to carry one because of a perception
amongst some members that a GPS confers an unfair advantage. It's an
interesting debate that hasn't yet been had. I think as the sport of CTR
matures, it's an issue that will have to be confronted.
Personally, I think the adoption of technologies that allow competitors to
make informed judgements about their performance in real time is only going
to grow. For example, from comments by an Endurance competitor at the North
Island Champs published in the March issue of "the Bulletin" (magazine of
the NZEF) it's clear that there are no qualms about using heart rate
monitors in competition. The challenge I believe should be to find ways to
ensure equal access to information that can be used in competition, so that
the use of technologies confers no real advantage.
I would argue, for example, that any competitor who has prior knowledge of
the trail, and in particular the distance of recognisable land marks from
the start or finish, has as much if not more of an advantage than someone
who has a GPS but no recognition of where they are.
I've always been disappointed at the variable information that has been
provided in ride briefings - seldom are accurate maps available, and seldom
are accurate distances given. This not withstanding the clear rules
governing the provision of maps a week prior to competition, and distance
markers on the course for endurance rides. The provision of such information
would mean that any competitor with a wrist watch and some facility at
mental calculation would be as well equipped as another with a GPS.
Because of the very late confirmation of the Makara ride, few members and
probably no competitors would have had time to access these documents which
mapped the proposed
trails and provided
distances from
key points. That's a shame, because some of those riders who got lost
due to a pink bottle being blown off a key gate might have recognised the
landmark from the map if they'd had one.
While the objectives of CTR include the words "To demonstrate the rider’s
ability to complete the course as close to the set time as possible", I
believe that it is a mistake to over emphasise this element of the
competition. In my view there are good reasons for bringing a horse in as close
as possible to the set time, and they have little to do with a test of the rider's skill.
In my opinion, the primary objective of CTR is "to prove the horse’s fitness
... by finishing in sound condition with good recovery heart rates". The
timed element of the competition serves two purposes.
-
CTR is
not a race against the clock (unlike Endurance). Double time faults for an
early finish are designed to ensure riders don't race against the clock,
and reinforce the requirement that "In all equestrian sports the horse
must be considered paramount"
-
In
order to fairly compare the fitness and recovery heart rates of the
horses, the horses must complete the same course in the same amount of
time. It would be unfair to compare the heart and recovery rates of a
horse that had arrived on time with the unmodified rates of an equally fit
horse that had taken a longer time to complete, and consequently had less
stress and lower heart rates. Single time faults for lateness are designed
to redress this imbalance and to provide an incentive for riders to arrive
as close to time as possible.
I believe that the ideal is for every rider to have sufficient information
available to them to bring their horse home within a 5 minute margin of the
optimum time. While there is some skill in covering a set distance in a set
time, there's also an element of luck involved. There's a lot more luck
involved for the rider who has no idea how far they have to travel or even
where they are.
CTR is not orienteering. Riders are not expected to find their way by dead
reckoning or calculate distance home. If we're serious about testing the
fitness of the horse, the skill of the rider ought to reside in their
ability to build their horse's fitness and judge its condition on the trail,
and if we're serious about a level playing field, we ought to provide higher
quality trail information to all competitors so that they can level it
themselves.
Of course, the opinions expressed in this diary are my own, and not
necessarily those of the club. I'm also conscious that power in these
debates rests with those who have a means to publish their views, and not
everyone has equal access to the publishing media. So, I apologise in
advance for using my own advantageous position. If any member would like
assistance in publishing their own view in this debate, I would be more than
happy to assist.
Respectfully
David
8 February 2006
Subscribers to the club's emailed newsletter will have seen Eunice's note of
thanks to Sandi and Mike. For my part I can only re-iterate that all club
members owe a huge debt of gratitude to those who plan and organise the
venues and events we all enjoy so much. Indeed, thanks is owed to all those
who contribute in a myriad of ways to keeping the club running.
In that vein, I think it's worth reminding members that clubs like ours are
totally dependant on the services of volunteers, and that while people's
ability to contribute time, materials, and skills will vary widely, all
contributions are welcome and gratefully received.
Make this your goal - ask yourself how you can contribute something to the
running of a club event. Be clear in your own mind what you can give
willingly, and offer it. If nothing else, offer your personal thanks to
someone who's contribution you're grateful for - they will appreciate your
thought.
1 December 2005
Having been unable to make it to Wainuiomata and Waitarere due to other
commitments, it was a pleasure to get back out on the trail at Bright's Farm
last weekend. Unusually this time, I found myself in company. Kath's
daughter, Bobby Sue asked to come too, and so we set out at a leisurely
pace, punctuated by more frequent rest stops than I would normally wish to
make, but reaching the high point on the homeward trail in time to meet the
first of the returning riders.
After taking some shots, I handed the camera over to Bobby-Sue, and we
strolled back down the hill, pausing to position ourselves for shots of the
overtaking riders. I didn't get the camera back until my two 512 Megabyte
compact flash cards were full ;-)
Far from begrudging this as a lost photographic opportunity for myself, I
find myself appreciating the opportunity to view this event through another
person's eyes. Bobby-Sue's approach to photography is very different to my
own - she takes a very different kind of shot.
A lot of the trick to getting good photos is about "being there" - you
get a different shot on the trail than in the car-park. But a lot is also
about having a vision of the shot you want. Bobby-Sue wasn't daunted
by a more complex camera than she'd used before - she knew what shots she
wanted, and she set out to take them. Some worked, some didn't, but that's
the way it is with photography.
In the
Bright's Farm Nov 2005 gallery, all images from and including number
2343 onwards are by Bobby-Sue. I've chosen what I think are the best shots
of horse and rider for as many folk as we were able to snap. I hope you will
enjoy them.
I'm looking forward to Battle Hill and the next opportunity to push the
boundaries of my photography, just as our CTR horses and riders push their
boundaries of fitness and timing. I suspect however, if I'm to retain my
camera, I'll need to take off at a trot myself ;-)
24 October 2005
A long weekend provides a great opportunity for riding (in my case walking)
and website maintenance, and this Labour weekend has been well used. We have
three new trail profiles, and an
updated WATRC calendar, as well as some
housekeeping done.
Checking the NZEF website I noted the Karapoti
ride results are now out, so these too have been added to the site. No
doubt we'll see the newsletter in the next few days in time to give
directions to Wainuiomata.
On Sunday we rode / walked the Makara 2004 Novice trail in reverse. For
Leslie and I, this is a special trail. It's on our "home turf" so to speak,
but it's also the first CTR that Leslie rode and the first CTR that I
photographed.
After hiking that trail on Sunday, Monday was definitely a "day of rest". We
hadn't really planned to go that far, and sort of fell into it when your's
truely misjudged how far we'd come through Shepherds Gully and how far it
was to go. It was not a popular mistake at the time, and I was certainly
pleased when that last hill climb was over - I don't usually walk the whole
of a CTR trail.
As it turned out, however, with an unexpected cold snap and rain on Sunday
night not clearing until afternoon on Monday, we'd probably made the best
use of our time.
15 October 2005
Maymorn has been and gone and Karapoti is tomorrow - looks like another
early start coming up. Keeping the website up to date has been a little
challenging in the last few weeks, with my employer making some heavy
demands on my weekends and evenings as we bring some significant projects to
fruition. So, my apologies for tardiness in getting newsletters and results
posted - I hope to do better from here on.
I've started new season's pages for the results and newsletters, with links
to last year's pages so that you can refer back. The RSS feed has been
cleaned out and the renumbering of newsletters reflected in the titles,
although I have not updated the links to point at the archive pages. This
page will also shortly become a candidate for spring cleaning.
But for now, it's time for bed in preparation for that early morning wake-up
call!
3 October 2005
Well, here it is, October already and the start of the new season. The
Maymorn event was held on Sunday. The results will no doubt be out with a
newsletter in the next week.
Unfortunately, I couldn't make it to the event due to work commitments, but
I have GPS output for the Novice trail and have started generating the maps
and views for another trail profile. Having never been to Maymorn, it's
really great to be able to visualise the terrain - looks like a nice ride
over rolling country near the base of some high hills.
I also finally took the plunge on a new digital camera, so work projects and
weekend overtime allowing, I hope to get out and about to the next few rides
and get some more shots of happy horses and riders having a ball.
Some of you may notice that we've had a glitch in our newsletter numbering
due to changing editors. We have renumbered the links so that 67a through
67e now cover what were letters 67 through 71. Letters 71 and 73 have been
renumbered 68 and 69 - fingers crossed we're now back in synch.
8 May 2005
Late last week I obtained a mapping product,
TUMONZ (The Ultimate Map of New Zealand) and today it's been put to work
in service of the WATRC. The results are, I hope, simply stunning. The GPS
data from three rides of the last season has been imported into TUMONZ, the
results captured, and the images are now available as part of the revised
trail profiles.
For the past few weeks, we've had "altitude profiles" presented as graphs,
and those have given a very abstract picture of the vertical shape of the
trails. From them you can get a sense of the work your horse must do, but
they're difficult to relate to the trail with only a memory to go on.
But from today, we've raised the bar in terms of information presentation.
Each trail profile now has it's own page (the
original page is now an "index") and on that page you have:
-
a
location map - so you can see where the trail lies in relation to the
towns and roads about it
-
the
altitude profile - still good information for gauging how fit your horse
needs to be
-
a trail
map - the start/finish is marked and the map annotated with direction
arrows to show the route followed
-
and up
to three 3D views of the trail from various points and altitudes
Suddenly you don't have to have been there, or to somehow try to visualise
the trail from a limited view of it. The 3D views show you the shape of the
country traversed. For someone who has walked parts of those trails to get
picture of competitors, it's a lot like being there, but without the sweat
and heavy breathing.
Awesome -
see it for yourself
----------------------
23 April 2005
A day well spent, with the end result being a WATRC website that finally has
Wellington colours - especially appropriate since the previous colours
belonged to Otago. Followers of the Super 12 will know exactly why this is
important on this date!
In addition, some cleaning up of "alt texts" and URL titles, so that we have
a website more compliant with accessibility guidelines. I've also had to
learn a bit more about cascading style sheets, but it's beginning to pay off
- changes to the site are becoming easier to make
The Bright's Farm ride turned out to be the last of the season for WATRC, and
once we have the newsletter and results from this, we expect there won't be
many updates until September 2005
In the last few days I've added a
new page, now linked from several others, but not included in the menu.
This gives an "altitude profile" for some of the trails, based on GPS
data gathered by Leslie, my wife.
Leslie and I have had a sad year, with Mac, our 13 year old thoroughbred
gelding having an accident that lead to his being euthanased. Mac features
in some of the photos in the albums linked from the
photo page.
A friend of character, he is missed.
We have been incredibly fortunate (right place, right time) to find a
new horse - a 9 year old Appaloosa mare, "Dove" who, while still being
brought up to fitness, got around the Brightlands Novice course without
being vetted out - no mean achievement.
We're looking forward to the 2005 / 2006 season and hope to see you all
there.
----------------------
16 April 2005
I decided that the experimental RSS news feed that I added to this page
after some discussion with Gabrielle was easy enough for this webmaster to
maintain and use that it was worth taking the plunge - so now you'll find
the little "XML" icon dotted here and there about the website.
RSS stands for "Really Simple Syndication". There's an Internet standard
that specifies how it should work, and there are now numerous
RSS readers you can download and install in
order to take advantage of the news feeds from any website that provides
them.
In essence, RSS is a mechanism for automatically distributing news
headlines, along with a link to the news article. You configure your reader
to monitor various news services, and the RSS reader feeds you the headlines
as they become available.
It is, as the name implies, really simple. When I add, say, a newsletter or
results to the site from now on, I'll update the XML file that contains the
RSS headlines, and as soon as the updated
XML file is on-line, your RSS reader can alert you to the
new headline.
Because we're a small club and it's possible not many folk are going to use
the service, and because it's extra work, we'll keep it fairly low key to
start with. However, if you find the facility useful, or if you find it
isn't serving you in the way you'd hoped it might, please
contact the webmaster and let me know, and
we'll see what can be done to improve things.
----------------------
6 April 2005 I've just finished what will
be the last updates to the old WATRC website hosted on Geocities. If you're
reading this page you've probably already noticed that the URL in your
address bar has changed (have you updated your bookmarks?),
and if you've visited the new home page, you'll have noticed links to the
Wellington Community Network and
Wellington City Council
websites. These links are a condition of our hosting agreement, and while we
may choose to acknowledge the sponsorship of our community on other pages,
the home page logos are the only ones required of us. This is a substantial
change from the Yahoo sidebar and pop-ups we've had to endure under the
Geocities hosting agreement.
From a website maintenance perspective, the change is very welcome. As an
added incentive to upgrade your hosting agreement, the free hosting on
Geocities offers limited and highly controlled maintenance facilities. You
can only upload files through their interface (which installs their code
into your pages to display their sidebar) and there is no download facility,
so you can't easily make a backup of the existing website or import it into
your preferred tool.
This is not to disparage Geocities in any way, The free hosting has served
us well and we're grateful to them. There is every likelihood that we will
continue to utilise free hosting facilities in various ways, ranging from
photo sharing sites to email distribution lists.
In the meantime, there's still a good deal of work to be done salvaging what
we want to keep from the Geocities site and incorporating it into the WCN
site. Because a number of publications and websites link to the Geocities
site, we'll retain it for some months to come, but its maintenance is at an
end, and I expect to gradually reduce the content held on it until it's just
a page redirecting visitors to this website.
----------------------
17 March 2005 Well, there comes a time
when, having agonised for days over the changes you're making, and delaying
the inevitable while you fuss over the details, you finally just have to "go
live". That day is here. I hope the new design meets with approval, and I'm
happy to receive constructive feedback. Email the webmaster at:
For now,
the website continues to be hosted by Geocities.com, an acquisition of
Yahoo.com. The website is hosted under the Yahoo basic hosting plan which is
advertising supported and free to the site owner. I have hopes that the club
may be eligible for hosting by a local ISP under a community good or
sponsored hosting plan. Provided the WATRC committee agree, we'll be
pursuing this in the near future.
In anticipation
of a move to a new hosting arrangement, and as an exercise in bringing the
design and content of the website under a model that better meets the
Web Accessibility Initiative issued by
the
World Wide Web Consortium, you'll observe that there are already some changes afoot.
Taking on board the colour scheme of the Hoofin'
It website logo, this has now been matched in the menu sidebar. The menu links are yellow to
likewise approximate the logo colour scheme, and the menu has been extended.
I've noted however that recent newsletters have featured a different graphic
with a black and gold colour scheme, so it's likely that a further changes
will be made in the near future.
At this late stage in the 2004/2005 season, some of the new links are more a
demonstration of intent for the new season, and will not be updated until
new information comes to hand.
To ensure that
nothing is lost, the old site will also be accessible for some time as
content is migrated.
---------------------- 5 March 2005
As some of you have probably noticed, there has been little maintenance
of this website for some time. As I understand it, the previous webmaster,
Mark, has been out of the country and unable to continue with the
maintenance, and the site has languished for want of someone to pick up the
task. That's where I come in.
To introduce myself, I'm David - for most of you I'm probably best
recognised as the nut who's ventured off into the hills on some of your
recent rides, without a horse, only to meet up with you on
your's,
and take your picture. That's me. My wife Leslie recently joined
WATRC and we've been taking Mac to recent events. If you notice that Leslie
and Mac get their picture taken a little more often than the rest of you,
that's why.
So, to the website. I've volunteered to take over the maintenance. Leslie
and I have so enjoyed the access to fabulous riding and hiking trails that
the club rides offer, that it seemed only reasonable to offer to put
something back into the club. I've also put forward a suggestion for seeking
an alternative hosting arrangement for the site - I'm hoping for a
Wellington based ISP, a maintenance interface that's a little easier to work
with, a less advertising driven ISP, and a site without annoying and
irrelevant pop-ups. We'll see what develops in that area.
Given that we're now nearing the end of the 2004/2005 season with only
the Makara ride to go, there may not be much happening for a few months. I
hope to be able to use that time to develop some contacts who can provide
content, and perhaps redesign and relocate the site as outlined above. My
initial aim is to ensure that the website serves up-to-date information
about the club, its contact and membership details, along with newsletters,
results sheets, photographs from events, and links to our sponsors and other
useful resources. I should add that I'm not a professional website
developer, so my aim will be for a site that's functional rather than
frilly.
---------------------- To view the previous
webmaster's diary on the
old
website, click here. The old site is no longer being updated and no further
content will be imported from it. |
