Discussion: Possum Trot Results

Winners were Patrick Goeres and Sharon Crawford. Temp was 42 degees at start; threatened to rain but never did. Although the wind was blowing from the north, and temps dropped throughout the race.

More results will be posted soon.

Saturday's Pre-Possum results are available:here.

Both maps are available here.

Full results are now posted.

The # of Possum Trot entrants is slowly but surely growing. How will the scoring be modified when there are more than 85 runners? "The current organizers will be retired by then." is not an acceptable answer.

Looks like the course designer did a great job - excellent variation in the skips. I'm really surprised that 33 was one of the most popular skips - 15, 18, 25, seem much more appealing. Is it a matter of 'saving a skip for late'?

Thanks to all the organizers and volunteers. As usual two great days of Orienteering.

It seemed to me that none of the skips offered very much - generally 2-4 minutes as compared to upwards of 5 in previous years. The risk of taking an early skip and then getting caught by the pack after a bobble seemed too great to go with an early skip. I underestimated 15 - I think that's probably best, but I doubt it's more than a minute better than 33. Of course, these are just preliminary impressions. "Eric's Absurdly Detailed Skip Analysis" is yet to come.

You have to consider that the skips don't occur in the abstract. This isn't a solo race with interval starts. You're racing head-to-head in real time, and real time race developments will also influence--sometimes heavily--skip choices.

By #6, I'd had the chance to look at all the possible skips and committed to 32-33, which made the last three legs ridiculously simple (29-30-31-34). 15 was a good choice but was too early for my taste, plus it was still pack running at that point in the race.

To Rick's question: yes, it was an intentional choice to skip late when I'd be tired out and more likely to make stupid mistakes (as I've done in the past!) In retrospect, 25-33 would have been better for late skips, but it looks like only Eric and Swampfox were that wise. 28-29 was also tempting, but only saved distance without much climb reduction.

Kudos to Mike S for the excellent course setting. I like seeing the wide variety of skips.

I've run only two Trots and at my pace, I spent 90% of each run solo, seeing others occasionally. For me, not much different than an A-meet Green Course but I do lilke the challenge of picking two skips.

Last year's ice really whipped me physically. Also, Sunday doesn't give my body that free recovery day. Hmmm, Sharon finished in under 3 hours - sounds lilke a good length for me - next year?????

Thanks to Mike S for the great course and Dick N for the great weather (thankfully no repeat of the 2006 Icecapades).

With the field of runners swelled by the Manitoban and Minnesotan contingents there was a lot of fun pack running and pack strategy throughout this race. I also had about 1/3 of the race running totally by myself in the open woods and fields of Shawnee Mission.

#2 seems appealing as a skip if you were trying to seperate from the pack. Just get back on that road and power away. Seems nobody went that route. But i guess then the people you were with might go with you. So if you were the fast guy you might want to hang back and let the lead pack make their decision, and then sprint off?

I agree that 15 is a very good skip. The temptation to skip early (2, 7, 10, 15) is greatly outweighed by the advantage of running in a group or slightly behind faster runners. It is still a fairly small field though, and I don't know how much pack running actually happened?

Looking at splits from Mikell and myself, 25 saved Mikell 90sec+ over me, but I gained ~3 min by the end with skipping 30. I was running slightly faster though, so he may have saved a bit more with 25, and me a bit less with 30.

I'm a bit surprised nobody skipped 12/13 or 10.

#15 looks like the single best skip to me in retrospect, but during the race itself I completely missed seeing it!

For a combination skip, I think skipping #1 and #2 would be quite good, but it's hard to do that so early in a race like this, and in any case I never saw that possibility either--at least in part because I slipped as I was going over the creek out of the start, and coated the map case rather liberally in gooey mud. I was counting on Patrick to get us to #1 while I was trying to get the map cleaned up enough to read it.

I was probably further behind Patrick at #24 than he's guessing, because I took a hard fall right after #20, and it took a good bit to check things out and get myself up and going again.

I don't know how much pack running actually happened?

A lot. Things strung out on the way to 1 and by 2 it looked like the field might shatter. However, it came back together at 4 and we had a pack in various states of cohesion from there until the skips started at 23. I guess a lot of folks were hanging by a thread because in the space of 5 minutes the pack blew up and it was just me and Tom fighting it out for 4th place with Justin the only other person staying close.

The only time I've set a course like this (mass start with skips), I allowed two skips---but not two in a row. One person completely missed the "not two in a row" part and had to be DNFed.

I tried to eliminate the red tape and design the course so it was just "skip any two", but it always seemed (to me) to make me add more controls to prevent certain obvious double-skips.

My strategy for design was to consider every possible skip and to have a lot of skip options. It was just a little more work to consider every double skip (skip 1 and 2, 2 and 3, etc). But the problem for me was trying to get a design where skipping two in a row wasn't an obvious best choice. It's very neat with the Possum Trot course that most people seemed to take two single skips.

I'm looking forward to the detailed skip analysis.

Having skips definitely puts constraints on the course setting. PTOC folks have talked about modifying the Possum Trot format. Maybe one skip? Maybe no skips? Maybe a farsta format? What do you think?

The skips are the bomb! Seriously, Shiffman is a master at setting a skip course. The least interesting choices have been when the course didn't allow double skips (the lap courses, plus the year that doubles were outlawed). On the remaining 8 Trots, I think the optimal skip has been a double only four or five times. And a few times (most notably, VII at Weston Bend), the double has not been at all obvious.

I'd vote for keep the two skips, allowing for double skips. I only ran in one (VIII) before I moved, and I really enjoyed having the extra mind challenge of trying to figure out the best skip strategy of various permutations of skips. It's a long race, anyway, so give the brain something more to figure out.

Every goat event I've done since have only allowed one skip, and it's a lot less interesting.

Keep the double skips at the Possum Trot, because:
a) it's becoming a trademark
b) it generates more post-race analysis than any event I've seen (this thread is an example), and continued discussion about an event is a good thing
c) you have a master skip course setter

Better late than never, I suppose. Carol's Team website is functional again, so the Possum Trot report and Eric's Absurdly Detailed Skip Analysis can be found here.

Was Patrick the only Canadian in the race? If so this would be the third in a series of embarrassing defeats for the US in mass start O' races held in the USA in 2007.

Only 1 Canadian of ~70 in the Billygoat, Nick Duca, 1st place.
Only 1 Canadian of ~50 in the Highlander, Jon Torrance, 1st place.
Only 1? Canadian of ~25 in the PT, Patrick G, 1st place.

I don't think are any Canadians in this weekends VF Marathon, but if 1 shows up, I serious hope that some 'local' will beat them. At this point, I know we've got a serious BUL challenge to a US win in both Men's and Women's categories, but at least not CAN again.

C'mon USA - train hard. Let's not have this happen again in '08!

If it's any consolation, we sent at least two Canadians to the Possum Trot - I believe it was Steven Graupner who came third and I thought Patrick and Steven travelled with one or two other MOA members.

We could try to be more efficient but it would be a pity to require the winners who actually live in Canada not to bring any travelling companions.

Looking to '08 - c'mon Canada, train hard. We can let an American win the BubbaGoat uncontested, and maybe the GoldenGoat, but they should have to bust their butts to have a chance at anything within a reasonable drive of the border.

There were four Canucks: Mr.Pither, Steveng, a second Graupner, and dkonotopetz.