Discussion: The real, real, real slow running in NH, Live!

I see the appointed hour is only about 15 minutes away. No doubt dignitaries, hobnobs, and commissioners with scantily clad, youngish looking flooflahs draped on their arms are arriving in their limos at the start/finish area for the Sprints. I can imagine that various runners and even Canadians are jogging around and getting warmed up. Some of them could even be dressed in the style of an AR, though that is only a guess.

But will the coverage really work or not? We'll find out soon enough!

Could there be controversy already? I note that F1-G3 results only sent one woman to the elite 8. Perhaps a protest! The international jury will no doubt be up to the task.

yes, the coverage works - I opted to remove the yellowjackets from my socks first....

Joe Sackett, Eric Buckley, Magnus, and Piller have taken the early lead in the Fantasy Sprint Finals.

Boris sez there are further updates to the fantasy brackets. Boris is here in nh and recalculating as i write this - more in a few moments

tied for lead w/ 12of16
mike brooks
dasha
chris pillar
magnus
joe sackett
e buckley

gotta run my 2nd round more later...

There are yellow jackets racing too? I don't recall the commish saying anything about yellow jackets before! Are they winning all the brackets? It seems they would have a real advantage, being able to fly around the course and packing a real mean finishing sting besides.

BORIS!! what are you doing there!!! I thought you lived in Sweden now:-) Marc and I are jealous that you there, we wish we could have made it. Too bad about not making it the semi but at least you can watch the action live! It may be too late for us to watch for the end results. Good luck tomorrow!
ciao SaMa

fantasy round2

m lyons - 25/32
magnus 24
e buckley 24
hans 23
clem 23

So how exciting was the head-to-head sprinting? Can we sell it as a reality show? Should it be added to WOC 2006?

very exciting. the final was great to watch due to a very spectator-friendly course. some pictures.

Thanks for the updates. I'm sure that I'm not the only one that very much wishes he was there. Question: how close were the finishes in the last round. I'd think by then people would be pretty evenly matched and most of the races would come down to a sprint (as in 100m dash - all the races were "sprints"). Was this so?

In one of those pictures of Kenny's, there is some very disciplined looking dude dressed in West Point colors. Was that a cadet, or was it just "The Waddington"? Or has Mike become a cadet? And in another picture, there is someone dressed suspiciously like Big Eddie, but I could tell it was just Charlie Brown instead. Good Grief!

in general the finishes were close, but decided before the last control or finish line. throughout the courses, the lead would often change as people were running quite close together, and string out just slightly towards the end as people got tired.

in the men's A final, we were surprized when eddie was actually the first one to the line, but he accidentally skipped the last control.

I've entered a few of the times on the bracket page, but the thing to know about that is the finish punch was not at the line (the line is what counted), and not everyone punched it right away, so you may see some that appear to be out of order. sandy has the e-punch splits, so peter will probably post them at some point.

maps from the final: part 1 part 2

Looks like fun. Did anyone swim?

What does the clue Boulder 0.8/2.8 mean?

height from the uphill/downhill sides.

I have uploaded some photos to the gallery at TheWaterStop. If anyone else has photos that they would like to upload for the Juniors to see, you can do so here.

Maps from all rounds:
Round 1:
Men heats 1 and 2
Women, men heat 3
Round 2:
Men heats 1 and 2
Women, men heat 3
Final:
Loops A and B
Loop C (also includes the model map at the top of the page, which was cut off and distributed separately).
All runners ran A then B then C. The original idea was to have two run ABC and two run BAC but this was rejected as perhaps unfair and certainly too chaotic. Thoughts? It turned out B was slightly longer than A, but we would have balanced them a little more carefully had we been going to use both orders.
Swimming was strictly forbidden.

After round 1 I claimed that I had put the yellow jackets out there as punishment for those who couldn't navigate (they were only encountered by those who overshot control 9 on Men heat 1,2 round 1). This was unfortunately proved wrong when they showed up on the line from 9 to 10 in the following round for this course...

I think (and hope) that Clint was the only one who was seriously affected by the yellowjackets. I got one sting during round 1, and two during round two.

Clint - did you count the bumps?

I think I counted about 10. I was probably the only one seriously affected - mostly because I was coming into #9 after an excursion off the map to the west (left #8 90 degrees off and running hard to regain the group in front and quickly lost contact with the map and other people).

I think the nest was probably just west of the control so those who orienteered properly punched and left in the opposite direction. But they started to sting me just before punching and I was picking them off me most of the way to #10.

I was stung on Sunday instead. I forgot where the bees were, but it is easy to remember where they stung (when I sit down.)

Hm... For me they only hurt for the first couple of hours. Now they itch like mosquito bites.

Mine don't hurt either, but the calves itch like hell...

"Bees stole my e-card!!" - I missed the bees in round 1, but they really got me in round 2. I got several on me between #9 and #10, and when I flicked them off my leg my e-card flew off my finger into the leaves. I eventually found it again on Sunday, after about an hour of scrabbling around in the leaves. It's the scratches that hurt today though, not the stings...