Discussion: Flying Pig XII - April 4-6, 2008

Preliminary information for Flying Pig XII on April 4-6 is now available at http://www.ocin.org/flying_pig/pigXII/entry_info_2.... Registration is now open.

This year's Pig will include a Middle Distance World Ranking event (WRE) on Friday, the U.S. Sprint Championships on Saturday, and the U.S. Extended (formerly US Long) Championships on Sunday.

Thanks for all the information - great help in planning travel!

BTW, when did the name change from Long to Extended? This is the first I've heard that name.

USOF Board voted on that a few months ago -- I'll have to look up past minutes to see when -- to avoid confusion with IOF Long. What we used to call classic is now "long". I think we need a more creative name than "extended", maybe "ultra" or "mega". If anyone has ideas, please start a thread with them, and we'll keep this one for Pig specific info.

Since my earlier posting, I've added more motels to the motel list & have someone working on motel discounts, so there may be more changes. I've also updated the locator map to show motel locations & added some map clips to the course notes page.

The "extended" name seemed to be drawing a lot of criticism. USOF Board voted to change the name to "Ultra Long" at the Texas meeting on Feb. 16.

Lodging. Please note that there is a MAJOR soccer tournament in Fairfield on Pig weekend (300 teams). They had to make reservations at designated motels by Feb 24, so any remaining rooms may now be open.

Eugene Granovsky reports finding good lodging rates at EconoLodge (off I 75 just South from 275) with the nightly rates as following:
standard 1 King bed - $42.99
standard 2 Double beds - $45.99
55+ 2Double Beds - $41.39

answering a couple FAQs: There will be a full range of middle distance "A" sanctioned courses on Friday. To run in the WRE you must be in blue M-21+ (men) or red F-21+ (women). But there are courses for everrybody (white, yellow, orange, brown, green...). WRE start times are assigned by random draw and can not be changed, so plan your flights to arrive early.

Update on the Saturday Sprint races:
Both sprints will use new maps in the Oxford, Ohio area. One map is priamarily a campus setting, while the other will use a variety of terrain including a section of mature open woodland, some thick woods with a dense network of paths, an area of open parkland, and a complex of buildings.

There are now prices and information posted for the Saturday dinner:
St. Mary Parish Center, Oxford, Ohio, 6:00 pm Saturday (Catholic Mass at 4:30). An Italian style dinner will be prepared by Heather, aka Unwritten Chef, a local trail runner, adventure racer and orienteer who specializes in small event catering and in-home meal services. Unwritten Chef website You don't want to miss this one! pasta, meatballs, sauce, salad, bread and a dessert.
Prices: age -12: $8, age 13-20: $10, age 21+: $13.
If you have already entered the Pig and indicated you wanted a dinner, please drop me an email to confirm. Ditto if you want to add a dinner. You can pay on arrival.

I'll vouch for Heather's cooking skills. Hope to see many of you at the Saturday dinner!

Btw, as a reminder, the last day to register for the Pig without late fees is coming up - March 14th, Friday, before 11:59pm.

For those traveling by air, CVG and Dayton are the closest. You're more likely to find cheaper airfare to Dayton (US Airways) than to CVG (Detla hub).

The next closest airports are Indianapolis and Columbus. Southwest flies to both. Skybus goes to Columbus, Jetblue doesn't anymore.

Then Louisville and Lexington are 2-2.5hrs from Hamilton.

Anyone flying into either Indianapolis or Columbus that would be interested in sharing transport?

How far is the drive from either of those? Is one preferable based on traffic? Free wi-fi at the airport? ;-)

I guess this depends on where you intend to stay during that weekend. Indianapolis and Columbus are almost equidistant from Hamilton, Ohio at ~120mi (2hrs driving time).

From Indy, you'd take I-74E to Cincy, then likely I-275N to US-27N to arrive in the Oxford/Hamilton area. From Columbus, you have a couple route choices - I-70W to I-675S around Dayton, then I-75S to OH-129W into Hamilton. Or you can go I-71S towards Cincy if your hotel is closer to that side (East) of town.

Remember, the Sunday Ultra Long will be held in East Fork State Park near Batavia, Ohio. This would give Columbus a slight edge of 20-25 minutes shorter drive over Indianapolis.

Traffic wise, I tend to think it's a wash either way. Perhaps cedarcreek or mike can chime in on this? I have no comment on the free wi-fi, either.

I just created this on google maps. It should show the approximate locations of all the competition areas. Of course, all the detailed meet info and driving directions can be found on the Flying Pig's page. But I thought this might come in handy if you need to measure/compare distances from different airports, do a search for hotels, etc.

Cristina - there is a group of us arriving Columbus 4/4 @ 1115 departing 4/6 @ 1611. Should have room in our cars. Let me know if interested.

Columbus (CMH) should be a little over 2 hours drive to Friday site & about the same from the Sunday site.

Friday arrival: This route beats going down to I-275 (Cincinnati bypass) Take I-71 south from Columbus to exit 32. Take OH 123 north to Lebanon and it becomes OH 63 west, which you follow across I-75 thru Monroe. Exit left (south) on Ohio 4. We're still working out parking arrangements for Friday, but it will be off Ohio 4 before you get to bypass 4 on the north side of Hamilton. Lebanon is a little slow & Monroe has a few traffic lights, but you should make it in right about 2 hours.

Indianapolis is probably a little longer than Columbus to the Fri and Sun events this year.

The Flying Pig will NOT have a t-shirt this year. Demand has been low the last couple years, and I've only had a few orders so far this year, plus the artist still hasn't come up with a final design. Maybe we'll try something different next year. Those entrants who already paid for a t-shirt will receive a refund with their packets.

An updated entry form has been posted.

Entry fees go up if not postmarked by today (March 14). I'll take a Saturday March 15 postmark, since I'm a little late posting this "last minute warning". If you're on the far side of the country or outside the USA, I'd appreciate an email with your vitals (name, YOB, course/class and which events, SI #, US Championship eligibility).

Flying Pig WILL have a t-shirt this year. Short sleeve, Carolina blue. The design will match our famous Flying Pig medals. If you want one and have not already ordered, please contact the registrar immediately. Price is $16.

Updated registration list and updated locator maps have been posted. We finally got the parking arrangements for Friday ironed out. There is a 2 km walk to the start on Friday, so be sure to allow plenty of time.

Just a reminder that tomorrow, Friday March 28th, is the last day to register for the Flying Pig.

Updated lodging list is now posted to show Oxford area motels.

I may be able to fly into/out of Dayton. Is there anyone who'd be willing to share a ride to and from Dayton???

On a completely different note... is there snow in the forest? In southern Ontario right now, we're still hitting knee-deep snow in some places.

No snow. Temps should stay above freezing all week. Pigs (even the flying kind) love mud and we will guarantee plenty. Rain likely Friday but ending Friday evening. Too early to tell if it will be gone before the WRE.

We were out in the woods today, and even though it was rainy, it was *so fine*.

I'm looking at two web sites every day:

Weather Model---It moves day-by-day, so don't trust it. I look mostly at 2m temps and the rain forecast at the very bottom.

East Fork Lake Level Click through the link in the "W. H. Harsha" row under "Today's Pool Feet" to see a chart.

{edit}
A third link to a downstream river level gauge which shows the EF Dam outflow hourly or so, rather than the daily updates from the Army COE website.

Thanks! Since your snow is gone, I can just plan what to bring based on the weather forecast, which makes things easier.

Start List is now posted (except for WRE starts). We are hoping not to begin WRE starts before 3:30 pm. There is a 2 - 2.1 km walk to the start and you can't drive it, so be sure to allow plenty of time.

WRE Start List is now posted, see "start list" link in my previous posting.

Heavy rain is expected Thursday thru mid-day Friday. It might or might not stop before the Friday starts. Saturday and Sunday should be partly cloudy and pleasant, but expect to find mud.

By popular request, in addition to the Ultra-Long brown on Sunday (6.3 km), we are offering a "shorter" but still long version of brown (4.2 km).

F70, F75, M75 and older age classes will use this shorter brown as their Ultra-Long Championship.

M70 age class has the option to move to this shorter course, based on the wishes of the one pre-registered entrant in this class.

Anyone else who wishes to move from the longer brown to this course should notify me as soon as possible. You will need to change your category to "short brown open".

Hi all, I am Annabel F. Valledor from Spain. I will be arriving to Cincinnatti airpot from Seattle tomorrow April 4. Is anyone else flying from Seattle in the morning flight and would like to share a rental car with me?

Hi Annabel, I live only ~15 minutes from the Cincinnati Airport (CVG). So if you don't find anyone from Seattle flying there in the morning tomorrow (Apr 4th), I'd be happy to offer you a ride to the meet site, and even the hotel you're staying afterwards.

You can find my email address under my Attackpoint profile.

-Gerald

The SI team is going to attempt to post results immediately after the event. I know it's at least an hour away, but I thought I'd post a link:

Results for all days

OCIN main site

Hope nobody flying to Columbus was using Skybus, who've just announced the cessation of all flights effective Saturday (April 5). Since Columbus was their main hub, perhaps some orienteers might be caught in this.

The problem with the splits displaying correctly in Firefox has been fixed. You might have to refresh the splits page to see it.

I posted maps (courses I ran) from the Pig on my log.

Thanks for the maps PG and results are up really quick too. I am awake late waiting on the Swiss Night-O champs results. Nice to see what happened today at the Pig as well.

WinSplits available for all events as well. Thanks to the epunch team for making the information available to me.

I have posted by Class, as well as Course, or in some cases by Course divided into gender (example: Green Male and Green Female).

Please note that Wil and Kat Smith ran their courses on 4/4/08 unofficially because of travel delays. Though their splits are listed in the WinSplits, their time was not reported for WRE purposes.

Thanks for doing all that, Valerie!

Nah, I just did the "Gee, that's cool!" part after all of the OCIN people did the hard work.

Thanks to Mike M and the rest of OCIN for a great event!

Yes, thanks to OCIN for a fun and well-organized weekend of events!

Fred LeBow, the grandmaster organizer of the New York Marathon, used to position himself unexpectedly in the middle of the race course, close to the finish, with welcoming arms outstretched. After 25+ miles through the streets of New York with 25 000 other runners, it was almost an emotional experience to see Fred up close and personal.

Seeing Mike Minium pouring water at #7 on the rugged Green course on Sunday, on the top of that beautiful promontory, with small trays of cookies and Gatorade he'd hauled out there himself, was a similar welcoming and personal experience. Wonderful meet Mike...you hit all the buttons, and then some...

Thanks, Clark. Actually, Course Setter Matthew Robbins hauled out all of the water & most of the food the night before. From the closest vehicle access (which itself required ranger permission & vehicle abuse by mud & branches), it was still a 2 km + hike over very sloppy horse trails & terrain. I believe Matthew carried as many as 8 gallons in one trip. I was sore after hauling out 1 additional gallon, a medical kit, & some cookies.

Wow, *big* thanks to both of you! Now I'm wishing that I'd taken a cookie, since you would have had less to carry.

Excellent courses! Nice variety on Saturday and Sunday. Slop and vegetation were not as bad as feared on Sunday :).
I did eat a fig newton - for Matt's sake!

mikeminium: Great event.

cedarcreek: The range of courses you made is amazing. As a collection, they could make a great training camp. Too bad there weren't more customers for the white course. It was a good one.

vmeyer: Where is the link to winsplits?

vmeyer: Where is the link to winsplits?

Here is the main page:
http://www.obasen.nu/winsplits/online/en/default.a...

Feel free to post the individual event links for everyone.

Tom---I just did the Sunday Courses. I know Mike did the Friday courses, and my brain is so fried from the weekend that I can't remember who worked on the Saturday Sprints.

My one moment of---I don't know a good word---"longing" maybe---was when I saw the Sprint 1 map at the finish on Saturday morning. I know it was fairly simple nav, but I saw the map and thought, "Oh, I want to run that."

Regarding the remote waterstop--- I thought I had picked a beautiful spot, and I didn't think it would be overly difficult to get stuff out there. Gerald carried maybe 15 or 20 pounds (of cookies and pretzels plus the 9 or 15 SI boxes), and I made two trips of 6 gallons and 7 gallons (48 and 56 pounds / 22 and 25 kg). I didn't measure the walk, but it's over a mile; flat, but muddy the whole way. (Mike's 2km is probably right.)

In retrospect, it was a stupid and foolhardy place to put a waterstop. The reason for picking that location was 100% aesthetic---There was no good logistical or practical reason to pick that spot otherwise. I would probably do it again, but I'd have to do a better job planning the logistics. We normally wouldn't provide more than water, but since the courses were long, Mike specified sports drink, cookies, and salty snacks.

Last year at the classic course at Miami-Whitewater, all the water went out the morning of the event because the temperatures were well below freezing during the night before. I had the water in my living room rather than the garage so it would be less likely to freeze overnight. If it had been that cold this year, we would have been scrambling to carry water and/or stoves out there.


Regarding my big screwup:

For those reading this who don't know, the East Fork Lake was between 15 and 20 feet above winter pool. We recognized the problem and redesigned the courses in such a way that there was still a potential issue with certain route choices. In the course notes I promised a map of the high water at the start, and then failed to provide it. Several people, including Samantha and feet, had to wade or swim through water that was probably 51F (10C), and possibly less (although the forecast I saw called for a 40F low, there was a frost that morning).

I feel worst about the Long Brown runners who went straight on 7-8---The sidehilling around the high water was on a steep and slippery slope. The leg basically dares you to go straight. On the other advanced courses, I know that at least 4 people swam or waded over waist high, and I suspect a lot more did.

So---Were you affected by the high water? Got any stories? Exactly how cold was it?

To those who were adversely affected, I'm really sorry.

Well, it was my fault as well for choosing a bad route choice. I saw that the river was flooded, but did not realize how deep it would get. It started out around my ankles, then kness, then waist, then suddenly my feet could no longer reach the bottom! Once I was in up to my chin I figured I may as well swim the rest of the way. Unfortunately, my foot got stuck on a branch which slowed me down. Then when I reached the opposite bank I still couldn't reach the bottom, so I had to haul myself up onto the muddy bank. I warmed up quickly by running up the opposite hill. It was cold enough that when I went all the way in my chest tighened up - either in fear or from the cold. All in all, I think it just added to the ultra-long experience!

I would argue that when Samantha, feet, Balter, et al, choose that route, it's not a bad route choice.

vmeyer: Thanks for the link.

cedarcreek: I meant the East Fork Courses as a collection. For example, the green course was completely different than the red course and tested different aspects of technique and physical culture.
Who is stopping you from running the Central Quad? Well, I suppose the botanists probably weren't too happy about that one control. I would like to try out "4 leaf" again, but I think it is on private property and not available for training.

Lyn and I both ran the long brown. I started to go straight, got to the rim and saw the lake disappearing up the reentrant way beyond where I intended to cross and head back to go around. Lyn went on down, side slipping along the slope, crossed a stream and headed up only to realize she was on the next spur and not across the reentrant. Back down and across and onwards.

Regardless, I thought it was a neat course and with challenges like that, made it all the more interesting. Overall the weekend turned out much better than I had anticipated. Thanks to all at OCIN for a great weekend.

Sam, I think I swam across in the same spot you did, because my experience with this crossing was word for word similar to yours, even with the foot caught by branch under water for a second.

As, for selecting that route, I knew I was taking risk, this time gambling did not pay, but the experience I will remember for long time, so it was worth it.

The route choice that led to swimming was IMO a good one:
I am talking about leg 14-15 on Red, if you plan to continue thru Start area. I was not crazy enough to swim, so I went upstream before I could see how deep it was and cross just about knee high.

This easily avoidable error by course planneer totally ruined othervise an OK course.

Matt and Mike were alert to the issue, then forgot to post the corrected map at Start. Unfortunate oversight; sleep deprivation?; apology accepted.

For Green S-#1, I chose "left of red line" over right since climb on other side of inlet looked less steep there. I saw 'bay' from above, but didn't believe it could be that bad. It was! And I was unwilling to get saturated on first leg. 400m hike north along bay :(. Then I chose the slower, more physical routes to #2 (straightish) and last third of #4 (in creek) - really wore me out. Despite good execution - rough start. But I knew where to cross on return trip:).

Interesting, for red 14-15 I didn't even think about passing through the start. I was more or less going straight. I see the best route as following the trail out of 14 and crossing the stream there and running up the reentrant. Safer and easy to navigate. The stream crossing, as Greg put it, is certainly an experience that adds to the memory of a challenging and fun course.

Are all of these courses and fascinating route choices going to be put up on a Route Gadget site for others to see?

PS Congrats to OCinn on a terrific three days of orienteering.
It was my pleasure to provide many hundred of dollars to the hotels, gas stations (and a traffic court) of Ohio.

C'mon Gord - you can't leave us hanging:). There's a story to be told.
Hmmm, I presume that they considered you a flight risk!

RouteGadget! Sorry so late!!

Thanks, Vlad!

I couldn't see a map (or list of runners) for Sprint 1 - can you check that sometime? It could just be my connection, but I'm getting the others okay.

I tried again...It looks okay, so no checking required. :-)

Results and Splits are now posted by both class and course. Photos are beginning to appear.

Gord and others, don't give in to Ohio's (and other states) revenue hungry traffic courts without a fight. Go to the National Motorists Association Foundation for information on how you can fight back. In most cases, speed enforcement isn't really about highway safety, its about how many $ they can raise. If you fight, even unsuccessfully, you make their operation less profitable.

dersu: Central Quad is open to the public. Cedarcreek couldn't run the sprints because he felt he had too much work to prepare for Sunday's races. Miami Suites is privately owned, but the owner is very supportive of recreational hiking, orienteering, etc. He's trying to develop the land as a business/tech park and there's the possibility that an Oxford bypass will cut across it, so enjoy it while you can. Anyobody interested in a gorgeous 57 acre mapped property adjacent to Miami University Natural Areas?

Photos. More are now posted or linked. If you have any, please let me know and I will add them.

Wil Smith has a page of photos listed in his log (see Sunday's entry). Maybe he'll let you add them. :-)

Thanks, Mike, and all of OCIN, for a great weekend!

Please feel free to go ahead - you can find my Flying Pig photo gallery at:

http://orienteering.smugmug.com/

These aren't post-processed much (beyond minor work and cropping) - no sharpening, etc. Probably suitable for printing up to 8x10 form for the most part, though I wouldn't do any larger than that....

I'm working my way through several hundred photos from the sprint day... should have them posted by tomorrow night.

Medals and Maps... Let me know if you earned a medal and want me to bring it to the Rochester meet next weekend. See Pig XII Results and Photos page to check. Also, if you left behind a map or need an extra copy, let me know. All left clothing has been claimed except for a multi-colored striped ski cap.

I expect to get some more photos posted or linked in the next day or so.

248 photos by Julie Keim from the Saturday Sprints have now been posted on the results & photos page (linked above). If anyone wants a higher res version of any of these pictures they can email Julie. I have 45 or 50 more Sunday photos from Wayne, but I need to re-size them for posting, so it might be a day or two for them still.