Control 16 is a dog-leg, as there is no route choice and the runner has to come out of the control exactly the way they went in

This is not intended as a general guide to planning a good orienteering course, but the usual rules apply:

• Avoid dog-leg controls where runners need to travel along a route into a control and then must leave by the same route. On line courses this is particularly annoying, but on score courses, runners can make the decision whether they think it is worth the detour
• A good course is all about the legs between controls, not the controls themselves. There is no need to come up with inventive locations to place controls; great courses can be created that use the same control type (e.g. fire hydrant)
• For each leg of a line course, look at the possible routes between each control. Try to offer some route choice on each. Some runners may prefer to run fast along a road with little fine navigation; others may prefer to run more slowly as they concentrate on the map on their way along a shorter route through a complex housing estate
• Adding too many controls is likely to reduce route choice. With no route choice, you end up with a simple run around a loop with some waypoints along the route. This is, of course, fine when creating a course aimed at runners or walkers rather than orienteers
• Be mindful of the safety of people running your courses, so think about risks they may encounter and plan to avoid them. Your club may require you to attend an event safety course. Points to note:
  • Avoid encouraging crossing roads with fast-moving traffic - you may mark optional or mandatory crossing points on the map
  • Running through car parks should be avoided
  • Make it clear whether your courses are suitable for junior participants to run by themselves

This course is unlikely to be successful as the location of control 1/4/7 will punch many times

MapRun will punch any controls you run past at whatever position they come on your course. It is therefore possible to accrue multiple extra punches. The matching of controls to the correct sequence (for line courses) is done when you have finished.

In general, do not attempt to place multiple controls at the same location, especially if that location may get run past multiple times. Such controls may punch multiple times in quick succession (perhaps many times per seconds) and MapRun can get very confused when resolving the order in which controls have been visited along a course. Some older, but very common, Garmin watches have limited memory and it is possible to run out of space for controls. This means things like gaffled butterfly loops do not work well. As an extreme example, the fewest punches on a successful run on a gaffled course in Cambridge with 40 controls had 91 punches. One runner had over 200 punches and was still deemed as having mispunched. With traditional punching (e.g. SportIdent) this would have been a very successful event.