Discussion: Cancelled

With regret Get Lost!! announces that it will host no rogaines of any duration in 2014 after our Panoche Hills event on 04 January. Sadly, with the exception of the very first one at Henry Coe in 2010, rogaines have not been generating sufficient revenue to prevent significant expenses out of my own pocket. The pocket isn't that deep.

We will consider restarting the rogaine series in 2015 if the overall outdoor event climate changes. We do plan to restart our Street Scramble urban event series in late 2014, and will produce two Orienteering USA sanctioned events in March and December.

I'm so sorry, Vladimir. Thank you so much for the great opportunities I've had over the years. I'm not much of a street scramble guy, so I hope to see you around at a meet or two.
And your maps are great, maybe you can recoup some losses by selling them at stores like zombierunner or REI/sports basement.

There is at least a theoretical chance as of now that at least some of the wilderness events planned for 2014 will proceed. It's a small chance, but there is some prospect of funding, and our regular participants and, most importantly, the landowners are excited about rogaines and want them to happen. I don't want to get any hopes too high, the funding may well fall through.

But, should the event happen, what does the collective rogaining mind think about the schedule? The venue worked out great during our first event there last weekend (*). It is technically challenging, but not too challenging, and physically challenging, but not too challenging. The biggest problem for the proposed date is the temperature. With the common 10 am to noon start for the 24-hour event, I'd be concerned that too many people go out hard and fizzle and stop enjoying themselves by evening time and won't be able to go out on the course again.

So, what about something like 6 pm Friday 24-hour event start, 2 am Saturday 8-hour event start, and 6 am Saturday 4-hour event start? This would require people to arrive earlier than they are used to, and camp at the start/finish.

Why is the date so close to the World Champs? We were hoping to capture at least some of the overseas attendance, there are plenty of people out there with 4+ week vacations. Maybe this is a totally stupid idea, but most schedule slots are filled by now, so if we un-cancel, it'd have to be the same date.

(*) Yes there was ample gunfire when seemingly an entire local NRA chapter descended on the place. This should be possible to remedy in the future, since these people are somewhat organized.

Nothing in the rules says a rogainer can't pack heat too, right?

Um let's keep it civilized... we promised the BLM the largest unarmed use of the area, after all.

Sorry, I hope this isn't opening a can of worms or anything, but if the US Rogaine champs isn't until September 6-7 2104; how do you know now in January that the interest won't be there?

Attendance has been abysmal at our 2013 rogaines. Not helped by the collapse of the adventure-racing scene or de-facto boycott by the local orienteering club.

I would love to come out - but being on the opposite coast and the beginning of a new semester makes the likelihood I'd get there pretty slim...

This seems like a great opportunity for crowdsourcing.

Any comments on the proposed start times? I.e. even though this rogaine may be thousands of miles away and you never planned on participating, if you do sometimes participate in rogaines and one were held in your neighborhood with these start times, would the unusual start times change your decision to attend?

24 hours: 6 pm Friday to 6 pm Saturday
8 hours: 2 am Saturday to 10 am Saturday
4 hours: 6 am Saturday to 10 am Saturday

If one wakes at the normal time on Friday, then a 6 pm start would mean staying awake for 6 hours longer than other rogaines.

Might not change with my decision, but for the 24 hour event at least, I'd much rather deal with the heat while fresh, not late in the race. You could still have early AM Sunday starts for the 8 and 4 hour sections.

These objections are quite valid, and a few more have been emailed to me. Enough to already convince me it's not a good idea to tinker with the noon-ish 24-hour start time.

So, assuming the 24-hour start is on Saturday around or before noon, any detailed preferences? More time before the heat, or start later? Early enough to catch the last East Coast nonstops? (with the drive, this would mean 11 am or earlier start and finish).

Personally, I kinda like creative start times, either evening or early morning. The traditional noon to noon is probably my least favorite combination. I'd rather have a full day of light as one big block of time, either at the beginning or at the end. I'd definitely much rather start at 8, 9, or 10 than noon. And under some conditions, I would like starting in early evening.

As far as US Champs, glad to see you are still reconsidering the possibility, but that weekend (and the next two) are definitley impossible for me.

We may still also do the Adventure Trex in November, sometime after WMOC. Comes with two nights of no light as two big blocks of time. The 24-hour rogaine has to go well for the Adventure Trex to return, though.

Start time doesn't make a big difference to me but if I had a choice, I'd get maps for a 24-hr rogaine at 6 or 7 a.m. and start the event at 9 or 10 a.m. However, if your participants might be driving up in the morning, then the noon start works better for them.

It looks like we are converging on 8 am start for all divisions. It's hard to see how it'd be logistically possible to start the 8-hour and 4-hour divisions earlier than the 24 hours, since the map is likely to be the same, so we'd have to do some kind of quarantine.

I'm with Bash on map and start times. I've done adventure races starting at sunrise and you end up with little sleep the night before. If you start at 8 AM and hand out maps 2 or 3 hours before, people will be getting up a couple hours before that. Gives you a very long day. I'd prefer maps no earlier than 7 AM and start at whatever interval after that you choose. That assumes the start location has camping or is a short drive from motels, not 2 hours in the boondocks.

There is a Best Western within walking (for a rogainer) distance of the start (oh maybe 6 km).

Why not just use Best Western as the HQ and start/finish from there? Well, the terrain is not exactly right next door...

Noooooo.... another permit!

Occasionally I visit my parents, and they watch all manner of shows where people are strip mining park land into oblivion or racing dirt bikes through wetlands or closing city blocks to crash cars, and I wonder why it has to be such a pain to get permission for a few people to chase flags around for a few hours.

Attendance has been abysmal at our 2013 rogaines. Not helped by the collapse of the adventure-racing scene

For Raccoongaine, it has been the contrary, as the local adventure racing group has nominated it an event good for points for their season series, and has ordered all of its members to sign up. Great synergy.