Discussion: a cautionary tale

Once upon a time there was a young man who was also a competitive orienteer. One day he was running a race. Being competitive he wanted to run very well. Wanting to run very well he wanted to start the race fast. Starting the race fast he ran into a tree. Running into a tree seemed to damage some of this orienteer's neurons. For a couple of weeks later this orienteer had a sore throat, and instead of going to bed like anyone sensible, he was tempted by lovely French Jura orienteering maps and went running twice over a weekend, with his sore throat and damaged neurons. Upon returning home he was very sick and in a lot of pain and needed antibiotics and steroids to get better, and even then nine days after that weekend he got a nice big rash signifying scarlet fever and needed even more antibiotics. The poor orienteer with the damaged neurons thus lost two weeks of training and will not be very fit for the big races in Italy coming up.

The moral of this story is: Neil is a bloody idiot

Neil is lucky he didn't run into this tree.

I have a bad, bad feeling about that link Spike is suggesting. Bad, bad, bad! I have a suggestion of my own: if you are thinking of Possum Trotting this fall, DON'T LOOK!!!!

Last year, in an adventure race in Arkansas (which certainly rivals Kansas for carnivorous vegetation), David called out "Pretty Tree." I was about 30 meters behind, having just punched the last control and wondered a) how David could even tell the tree was pretty since it was nighttime and b) why that was worth commenting on as we were scrambling way too fast down a rather steep slope of loose rock. Then, to my surprise, Yvonne called out "Ooh yeah, pretty tree." So I'm wondering why my teammates are suddenly overcome with aesthetics when I reach out to steady myself and OW! SON OF A B---! As I removed my now bleeding hand from a tree that looked very much like the one in Spike's photo, I realized they were saying "pointy tree".

pointy things only make hole... i got a bump (see training log august 19th?) which took less time than for me to realise that I was sitting down instead of running forwards and to put my hand to my head. I suppose a vein burst. The same branch also gave me a hole for good measure, four staples long.

not that the spike wasn't impressive

Neil - do you think Catchingfeatures is to blame for all the recent running into trees?

I would have thought Catching Features was good training for NOT running into trees!

Maybe we should have a Catching Features option for "Kansas-style-vegetation" in that case running into a tree would elicit a somewhat different sound.

The really interesting sounds come when running through Kansas-style vegetation. It's an interesting mix of tearing nylon and explitives that, if accuratly reproduced, would certainly give one second thoughts about playing the game at work. (Not that any of the hard-working AP crowd would do such a thing anyway).

The game would have to be rated for mature audiences only.

So juniors have to do the real thing?

Streams of blood after each KS tree collision might increase sales for Biguns

Also, should sufficient blood loss slow max running speed?

All I know is that in Catching Features you get up and keep running... whereas in real life, you get up and hope you're not going to get a concussion and pass out.