Discussion: Sprint Finals and Mega

A few brief notes....

It was an awesome weekend. Three rounds of fierce head-to head sprint competition on excellent courses by Willam Hawkins on Saturday. A really fine -- and a world record to boot by a huge margin -- Mega-Control course by J-J Coté on Sunday. Best time on Sunday for the 18.8 km course was by Mike Waddington - 2 hours 42 minutes. Perfect weather.

A top-notch field including the best from eastern Canada and the northeast US, plus a bunch of others from farther away, including Eric Bone from Seattle and Boris from Sweden.

The sprint results were all up almost as soon as they happened (thanks, Ken and Clint), the splt times followed soon after (thanks Sandy and Valerie). Ken has posted the maps from the final round; maps from rounds 1 and 2 will follow.

I've posted the Mega map. The results will follow, including all the new world record holders!

Finally, thanks also to UNO, especially Jim Arsenault, Lex Bundschuh, and Tony Federer, for letting us share in their traditional camping weekend.

Big thanks to all involved. What a fun weekend! And particular thanks and well done to my buddies on the mega today. There were many of you, and it was much more fun for the company! Next time I'll carry some extra GU so that Steve can finish too.

many thanks to Peter, Wil, Sandy, J-J and all others involved with making this weekend happen. UNO always puts on a top-rate camping weekend, but the addition of this weekends special events and turnout of so many great orienteers put this weekend over the top. well done!

Sprint finals maps linked from here.

I want to add my thanks as well. I had a wonderful weekend! The courses were excellent, the organization was flawless, and the weather was ideal. It was great to see (and race against) so many people from near and far as well. Thank you to everyone who made it happen.

It's neat to read that the weekend all went so well! Congratulations!

Mamamia, seeing the tournament tables of Saturday, and the map of Sunday, I believed everyone who didn’t come missed a once in a lifetime orienteering experience. Congratulations Hammer, veni vidi vici and Sergei. J-J, I knew you were great, but after Sundays race you are fantastic!
Ross tried his best to persuade me to come over for this weekend. Unfortunately we had the long distance Swiss Champs yesterday. There is no chance I am allowed to miss this race, not even being sick is a good enough excuse.

Anyway, Bravo, I am proud to be an almost half-American.

In addition to JJ's planning and setting, I am impressed by the number of control circles he trimmed for the map. That itself must have taken a good chunk of time.

Just to chime in - and I think the post-weekend euphoria has dissipated enough that I'm entirely objective - that was one of the best weekends of Orienteering I've been to anywhere. Saturday was incredible as a participant and riveting as a spectator; and Sunday was everything I expected and more. It was a two-day affair where the whole was somehow greater than its parts.

Awesome.

Thanks.

Results from the Mega Control.

It was even fun to be a spectator online! Thanks for posting comments, maps, results and photos so quickly.

Does anybody know how mindsweeper is doing? (For those who don't know, he got a nasty laceration above one eye after 29 controls, and was sent off to the hospital to get stitches.)

Thanks to all people who made this fantastic weekend possible for us. Peter, William and Sandy, with great sprints finals, J-J with one of lifetime experience of collecting as many controls in one race as Swampfox is using for one of his 1000 days events. Special thanks to Lex, Ernst and kind UNO folks, whoes names I do not know, who fed us so well for two days.

Two compasses were left on the finish table after the Mega. Send me an email with a description to claim.

Thanks to all who made this weenend so memorable. Very exciting Sprint Finals and owesome Mega-O of a lifetime.

Here are my Sprint Finals photos. (4 pages). Note that the full-res "L" ones are not there. The T,S,M ones are. Let me know if you'd like a full-res. (the ones which include Charlie Brown were taken by Jeff Saeger)

For completeness, here are links to Ken and John F's photos from an earlier thread. I'm sure Vladim, Gregory and Biggins will have theirs up soon too.

lots more photos from the finish chute.

mindsweeper is ok. He got a few deep stitches and quite a few non-deep stitches, but not too much of his brain leaked out. Much thanks to the Federers et al. for shuttling us around yesterday so we could all make our ER appointments and plane flights.

Yes, thanks also to Clint and the other person (sorry, I'm not sure what your name is) who helped me get back on my feet, and to Pat who ended his race early to walk me back to the finish.

And thanks to everyone who helped with first aid to keep things more or less in place until I could get to the hospital.

How come in Catching Features after you hit a tree you can keep running?

Clint, do you want your bandana back?

no, not really... keep it as a souvenier...

Glad you're doing ok - you certainly went down hard...

Did you make that "urrrrrr" sound when you hit it? :-)

Hehe, I was actually surprised how minimal the concussion was. Too bad I needed stitches or I could probably have kept running. (I was really pissed that I had to stop, but I knew it was not sensible to try to go on.)

I'm divided on whether I should wash the blood off the map case and clue sheet, or whether they are more 'memorable' in the current state...

I posted a scan of both sides of my mega punchcard:

Click for larger version. I did a L-R flip on the backside scan so that the punches in the right side of the image correspond with the boxes/numbers in the left side of the image. 203 punches baby!! In the field it was two separate cards both pinned to my shirt. At the 102 water stop I put the second one on top of the first.

Here are smaller and larger versions if you'd like.

Damn Eddie. Imagine it took you a mere 2 extra seconds at each control to punch it, that would be almost 7 minutes of time devoted just to punching the controls. I bet it took more than that though. You should get some serious points for punching them all. Did anyone else get them all?

Yeah, quite a few of us punched everything. Randy, Martin Ward, Joe, Ted Good, Tim Good, Pavi, Kenny I think, Dave and Heidi Onkst. Others? Tim even took splits at every control. I took splits every 10 (or sometimes 11 :)

It definately cost at least that and probably more since it involved searching for the box on the card and then re-finding your location on the map, which sometimes meant counting back from one of the "10's" that were marked on the map. At least twice I made 180's and started back around the course in the wrong direction.

I punched all 29 that I found... But I didn't have numbered boxes, I just punched whatever space I saw on my giant card.

But did you get the number of blue controls correct, Eddie?

I punched all the blue controls, yes.

I punched all 203... besides having to stop, the main slowing factor for me seemed to be the loss of "flow" (as much as I hate the word), that immediate sense of current and new (intended) direction as you try to grab the swinging punch... the short-term memory and awareness of the surroundings just melt over those 2–4 seconds.

That's not what I asked.

And I only punched ~1/6. I definitely enjoyed when I didn't need to punch because I generated a good level of flow and speed in some areas. I very much respect the effort people made to punch everything because it gave the "race" a very different flavor.

I punched the Blue controls only. My flow was interrupted even then, despite just aiming for the next open box. Without punching, the whole course became mostly an incredibly long series of attack points, probably about 500+, with controls at 203 of the attack points. A lot of fun. Although I'd be happy if my next 'mega' only had 50 controls...
By the way, did JJ do something special related to control descriptions too? Like using almost every different control description symbol available? There sure seemed to be a lot of variety in that regard, including the contrived sort...

J-J was originally talking about using every single IOF description, possibly including the newer sprint descriptions as well. The difficulty of procuring a pipeline, a power line, and sundry other things stopped this, but some good ideas (like the radio control, the anthill, the first aid control and the fodder rack) made it into the final version. I really appreciated the radio control - a good laugh at that point was just what was required.

I didn't punch anything - my intent was to just take a split at each blue flag and hope I didn't get any bumps to my watch (didn't matter anyway since I only did 108 controls).

But just touching the punch rather then futzing with actually manipulating a card (and momentarily losing focus on the map) made the 'flow' seem to happen more easily for me. Probably why I like e-punching - it just seems to interrupt my concentration less.

I punched 154, then lost the punch card. D@^^n!

And I did notice a huge difference to the flow once I stopped punching.

Mindsweeper - Glad to hear the slash got repaired and you made your flight. Susie DeWitt and I were there with Clint trying to figure out the extent of the damage, very bloody at the time but definitely survivable but best to get it stitched up. By the time of the next Mega, it won't be noticeable.

I used a lot of column D symbols, but not quite all, as William notes. I could have come closer with a little additional advance planning, but I'm sure this is the most different symbols used in one course to date. I also did pretty well on the other columns &mdash there are a lot of column G symbols (as well as C, E, F, and H), and I managed to get most of them, but the realities in the field limited that as well. I haven't had time to go back and tabulate what was and wasn't there in the final version. One thing I was unsure of, but that turned out to be completely worthwhile in retrospect, was printing the control descriptions on one long "grocery register tape", which definitely got a great reaction from the crowd.

I started to punch the bottom of the map through about #6 but found it more distracting than it was worth, really breaking up the flow. Enjoyed it much more after that.

I did find a pipeline, a staircase, and a building-passthrough in the park over the weekend. If only I had noticed them sooner...

The register tapes are awesome. Mine is a little marked up, but people's reaction when I unfold it is priceless! Randy had his laid out on the back seat of his car to make sure nothing damaged it. Greg's bandalero was cool. Anyone have a picture of him to post?

How did you find the terrace, j-j? (or did I miss something you added to the control site?)

For foreign coverage of the Mega, see --

Norway: http://www.opn.no/, second item on the front page, also saying Norwegians are at work to get the record back.

England: nopesport. The Spookster is Martin Ward.

France: co-news, where they're having trouble coming to grips with the fact that their record has been smasshed.

Also mentioned on the Swiss Federation home page (thanks to Daniel Schaublin), and the Swedish deiscussion forum alternativet.nu.

Got a lot of people wanting to take a look at the map.

Not sure when/if it will appear on the USOF page.... :-)

I like the French plan for a course with only one control, which they think is a record that cannot be beaten for the course with the smallest number of controls (though they're planning to test the idea out first on a course with two controls to get the details sorted before the real thing).

Sorry for the delay in publishing the official prize list from the Sprint Finals --

Winners of the Qualification series Jon Torrance and Viktoria Brautigam -- each got checks for 11,000 yen (converted by the Commissioner into 100 dollars cash).

For the Sprint Finals, the top three in each heat received gift certificates redeemable at Scarborough Orienteering (orienteer.com). Values are in US dollars, even when won Canadians or Brits --

Women:
1. Katarina Smith, $100 plus a magnum (i.e. big bottle) of fine champagne.
2. Samantha Saeger, $60
3. Pavlina Brautigam, $40.

Men, Heat 1:
1. Sergei Zhyk, $100 plus a magnum (i.e. big bottle) of fine champagne.
2. Mike Waddington, $60
3. John Fredrickson, $40.

Men Heat 2:
1. Patrick Goeres, $60 plus a bottle of fine champagne.
2. Martin Ward, $50
3. Ian Finlayson, $40

Men Heat 3:
1. Dave Dunham, $60 plus a bottle of fine champagne.
2. David Onkst, $50
3. Greg Walker, $40.

Prizes must be claimed by December 31 or they will be contributed to the Team.

As I expected, the French are trying to throw out the record on a technicality (the 15% e-punching rule).

Speaking of French, just how fine was that Champagne? I might have made the trip (and lobbied really hard for Heat 3) if I'd known that was on the line.

Great buzz, Peter!

I think this was not just not Champagne with a capital C, but judging by the price, not even méthode champenoise either...

Given that I was hoping that at least one of the 4 winners would uncork it and spray the crowd, or at least the press, on the spot, in the style of Tour de France or Nascar winners, I was more interested in volume (large) and price (low) than in quality. The guy at the liquor store assured me that it wouldn't actually kill anyone....

Well, that's quite the alcoholic recommendation right there! What more could you want?!

It's a legitimate charcoal platform (as far as we can tell), Dean, and it's been on the map since 1992. In fact, on the original version, that spot was called "Kolbotten Hill" ("kolbotten" being the Swedish word for charcoal platform). The lingering mystery is why there's only one.

I figured there would be some whining from abroad about the non-use of e-punching, but this course certainly fit the conventional definition of an orienteering course, so there's no reason why it shouldn't be considered legitimate. The "rules" cited are simply what the Norwegians who set up a 120-control course decided to do, and they declared them to be the "world-record rules". We had people who pin-punched all 203, and that certainly counts. Although you gotta have respect for the effort put in by the French folks who actually set up 154 epunch units. And for the time being at least, they can take solace in the fact that the new record was set up by a guy named Jean-Joseph Coté.

I have a sinking feeling that this turned out too well, and that we therefore haven't seen the last of these boondoggles. Sigh.

I wasn't going to say it, but yes - I got that felling, too. But, this was truly a superative effort, and should people try to throw more controls at the problem, they will be hard pressed to equal the overall impact of this event.

I've posted the long, long, clue sheet from the Mega, thanks to J-J.

no, I meant #78, not #127. There's no terrace indicated on the map.

Oh, wait a minute. I see. My first experience with terraces was in Japan this August, where they are quite small (I believe they were used for rice farming on hillsides - someone else might be able to correct me on that).

Hey Eddie - if you want to check your punch card against mine, just to make sure we got them all right, then feel free!



Thanks J-J, great course!

How did Vlad and Tim get all the splits? Is there a watch pre-designed for an effort like this? I had considered wearing 4 or 5 casios up my arm, but decided that was a pretty odd thing to do, and besides I forgot. I endeavored to punch every 5th and the finish, for 41 punches (out of 50 max on my watch). I ended up with a few random extras, since punching the watch is pretty much a reflex for me, for a total of 46. Also, I missed 180, since I had punched at 179 and thought at the time that it was 180.

Polar S625X.

Polar S625X. I'm sure Spike got most of them, too. The bummer was that the Polar only holds up to 99 splits per exercise file, which I had not realized, but then there are up to 99 exercise files (or less, limited to the overall time record length, ~14 hours with 5-sec sampling and no speed data).

So, at Control 99, the "next split" counter rolled over to "00", which is what I had expected, and at Control 100, it took the split and displayed it. But the split did not record into memory. Same for Splits 99, 101, and 102. At #102 (water control), I finally noticed the "LAP FULL" message, stopped the file and started the second one. It takes about 15 seconds for the HRM to acquire the heart rate and be ready for the new file; it was OK to do it at #102 while drinking, but I decided not to bother again at #201. So, the same scenario repeated at Controls 200 through finish (I had one extra split when I decided to leave #194 because it was not where the center of the circle was, and I was too tired to go look for it all over the beach, and it wasn't even on the beach; but I turned around a bit of the way towards #195, thinking it'd be a real bummer if I were to miss one out of 203, and looked for #194 some more and found it).

So, my splits for #99, 100, 101, and 102 are guesses (their sum is correct, it recorded as Split 99), and the same for #200, 201, 202, and F (their sum is correct). I remembered Split 203 because I actually missed the control and looked at the watch as I punched.

I thought the watch would hold an unlimited number. But, mine filled up at 99 and gave me a "FULL" message. I didn't have the presence of mind that Vlad had. I just didn't take any more splits.

I'm impressed with the near-group finish of Peggy, Vlad, Biggins and Peter. All at 3:50. Would have been an interesting battle if they had been running together.

You mean, to see which one of them would have been second.... :-)

Tim wore two watches that could hold something like 150 splits between them. If you notice that he had an unexpectedly long split at 140, it's not just because he sat down to drink at the water stop for ten minutes. He also wrote down his splits at that point and restarted the watches.

I've got the whole map (uncropped) with course as a GIF that's about 1.7 Mb at 300 dpi, very sharp. I've sent it to Peter and he may post it, but if not, then if someone else has a good spot I can send it to them for posting. (I can also crop it to make the file smaller, if desired.)

I've also posted some photos of some of the sharpest-looking Mega runners.

I would love to have a copy JJ. jfredrickson@thewaterstop.org

And Peter, you can add this to your list of coverage.

More than two people punched them all. Off the top of my head, I know that Eddie, Randy, Joe, Pavlina, Dean, David Onkst, and Heidi Onkst came in with 203 punches, and there are several others that I believe did as well.

How about if I write that at least 7 did?

Oh, and the map is up here if you want to link to it.

so J-J, gonna go out and put up permanent course markers to immortalize this lunacy for all time?

If you put out permanent markers, you have to add just enough controls to beat the current record holder!

Finally got my pictures from Sprint Finals up.

The charcoal terrace was definitely there. It was the
raised kind (typical in Europe), as opposed to the
flat kind (typical in French Creek). It was mapped with
something I expected to be a rock feature, like a cairn,
as opposed to the brown triangle typical in my neck of
the woods.

I'm not sure about that anthill tho ... they looked more
like grasshoppers ...

Oh, you're talking about the"terrace", Dean? Yeah, that one was just kind of a broad, flat spur, which is what I normally picture in my head as a terrace. But I agree, the only actual terrace I've ever had was on Day 4* (I think) of the Swiss 6-Days in 1990, and it was a narrow shelf on a steep slope. I probably could have found one of those if I had looked around some more.

The black circle for the charcoal platform is common in Sweden, among other places, which is why Mikell mapped it that way. The brown triangle (which I like) is used only in Pennsylvania, and was originated by Steve Templeton. I lobbied the ISOM2000 committee to choose a standard map symbol for charcoal platforms (since there's a standard control description symbol), but they didn't do it.

* Why is weird stuff like this stuck in my brain?

QOC's Mont Alto (in PA) also uses black circles for Kolbottens, but thats the only other place I've seen that symbol used. I was expecting a Cairn on arrival, but there's no dot in the middle of the black circle. It was a strong platform as platforms go. One of the maps (Monte Livata) for the upcoming WC in Italy uses brown X's on the map for Kolbottens. There are millions of them. Like French Creek times 3. "piazzola per carbonaia"

How did I get 203 splits? It is in the comments. 2 watches: 50 split Casio, 100 split timex. Plan was to take the first 50 on the Casio and the next 100 on the Timex. At the water stop at control 138, I had a piece of paper and pen with my supplies and copied the splits off the Casio and cleared it so I could use it for the last 50. That left me 4 short so I just wrote down the first 5 on my map without stopping the watch. I also wrote down every 10th split so I could match them up in case I missed some.
It almost worked smoothly but I messed up the first watch transition. Pushed the wrong button and stopped the timex then botched the wrist switch and took another split on the casio which clobbered #55. Ended up missing splits 55-59. Thats what comes of trying to change punch cards and watches all while keeping up with KHall. I failed at both.
Rest was ok except for missing about 4 more. The beep on the timex was not working so I did not notice when I had a soft push on the button.

Doesn't Pomd Mountain (and maybe some other WCOC maps) have triangle charcoal platforms also?

The current version of Pond Mountain has brown triangles, changed from black circles on the original, I think. The old version of Macedonia Brook had black circles, but I don't know what the current status is. Gay City uses a brown circle with a dot in the middle. Ratlum uses brown triangles. And in New York, I think Silvermine has brown squares. Surebridge also has some, but they're just drawn with form lines, and the same may be true of other Harriman maps.

I think WCOC's Macedonia (at least) uses open brown triangles. There's a lot of charcoal platforms on NEOC's Gay City map as well (more than 100 distinct ones). That was my first map and since there was no official spec for charcoal platforms and I hadn't run on any of the DVOA maps at that point, I'm pretty sure I created a brown open circle since the features are circular and they are topological rather than rock features - made sense to me at least, though a number of people complained. I do think charcoal platforms should be brown and not black though...

randy, martin(uk), Joe, tdood, TimGood, Pavi, kwalker, Dave and Heidi Onkst, eddie, Dean, and vladimir make at least 12 who pin-punched all controls.

yes I punched them all, but somehow only got marks on my card from the blue ones.

(I'm Dean) -- as I mentioned before, I lost my punch card after 154 controls. But I can vouch for Heidi (at least for controls 64-203). So let's say at least 10 punched all.

A cut and paste from my brief comments on the mega: "Splits held by Polar HRM XTrainer Plus; Pin Punched all 203 controls on 8 UNO punch cards (7 x 25, 1 x 28); HRH 180, HRA 167; More extensive comments later."

I also know and can vouch that Ted, Tim and Heidi definately punched all of them. I also saw Pavi taking the time to punch all of the ones that I visited with her.

Heidi just told me Dasha also punched all them. She should know, as they traveled from number 1 to number 203, or rather 204, together. They caught up to each other at number 1, having started within minutes of each other.

Current WCOC maps use solid brown triangles oriented with a point towards up slope for charcoal pits. The early version of Pond Mt used a black open circle; the current version (1998) uses a solid brown triangle oriented to north. The early version of Macedonia (1990) also used open black circles; the current version uses open brown triangles pointing north.

Interesting - I believe DVOA maps have the base of the triangle aligned with the contour, and the tip pointed downhill.

All SVO maps are the same - point downhill.

A bit of a miscommunication. I'll believe Dasha touched every punch, but she wasn't carrying a punch card.

Yes Dean, Heidi just told me that you are correct. Dasha only pin punched the blue ones on a punch card according to Heidi. Sorry for the original miscommunication. I can only report what is told to me ;-) Heidi, nevertheless, did indeed punch them all on 8 UNO cards. We are thinking about framing them ;-)

I think the brown triangle for charcoal terrace, preceded Steve Templeton's application at French Creek in 1982(?). I believe I saw this symbol in a British mapping publication back in the 70's. Also I believe that another Brit, (before Steve T), Jeremy Denny(?) used this on one of the '78 Team Trials maps in Minnesota. These uses may have been for a small terrace in general, not necessarily a *charcoal* terrace. Can anybody confirm any of this?

DVOA charcoal terraces have always pointed downhill, Slope tags point down, why should terrace triangles point up?

surely a triangle points in more than one direction ???

Heidi's cards were beautiful -- some sort of checkerboard pattern?

And as for charcoal terraces -- they don't need to be on slopes (do they?), so it somehow doesn't make sense that the topography should affect the orientation of the triangle. But maybe it's an esthetic thing or something that helps the orienteer in cases the terrace is on a slope.

I like Clint's idea best of all -- brown circles (or open brown circles).

I live with a large number of charcoal terraces on the Ratlum map, and I greatly prefer the solid brown triangles. I found the brown circles a little confusing on the Gay City map. Orientation is another matter. Seems like the choices are to have one of the points go uphill, downhill, north, or south. Uphill and downhill seem to imply some extra work on the part of the person drawing the map, but probably generally nicer than just having them all oriented N/S.

Brown circles are not a good choice, because they look too much like small knolls. Most charcoal terraces are on some sort of discernable slope, but when they're on flat ground, the orientation doesn't matter. French Creek is the most well-known piece of charcoal terrain in the US, and the oriented (downhill-pointing) triangles there work out very well, because the topography is somewhat bland, and the triangles eliminate the need for slope tags. The only weird aspect from my point of view is that the platforms are distinctively round, but the symbol is very much otherwise. Doesn't take long to get used to, though.

I hadn't realized thet Steve Templeton had been working from British precedent, but that makes sense.

Sorry to introduce a rathole, but here with a brain full of oxygen, I might actually be able to internalize the answer.

What is or was a charcoal platform? How long ago was it used? How can I recognize it in the terrain? How, topologically, does it differ from a "terrace", which I described Sunday as a fat spur.

Sam

I have posted the Sprint results by Heat and by Course on WinSplits.

> How can I recognize it in the terrain?

At race speed I'd say you generally can't (especially in the autumn with leaves on the ground). I just look for the control (flag in forest). Good micrO practice though.

Some information on charcoaling is here. To get experience recognizing them, the best bet is to spend some time at French Creek, or closer to home for you, Sam, at Gay City.

At Gay City, about half the platforms are on slopes, the others are in more level terrain. They are generally seen as circular raised areas usually 12-18" above surrounding ground (unless worn down over time as many are) often with a pronounced circular trench around the outside which makes the platform itself more pronounced. There are often small rock piles nearby in rocky terrain.

They were created when large pyres of wood were carefully piled and burned slowly to create charcoal for use in forges and other early industrial uses. Typically a platform would be used repeatedly over the years to serve a fairly small harvest area, thus the layer of charcoal built up. Supposedly the circular trench is where the outer layer of logs was braced 'teepee' style.

although a platform in good shape is very distinct in the terrain at a walk (as in mapping) or slow jog, I will agree with Hammer that at a fast race pace you will see the flag before noticing a platform and therefore won't even bother to 'see' the feature. But they are definitely there so its not as bingo as a flag in the forest.

JJ is quite correct--brown circles for charcoal platforms are a bad idea, and for the reason given. The brown triangle works well enough, but be prepared for black circles in Sweden, where charcoal platforms are a common feature in certain regions there.

I think Jon Campbell also punched them all.

Didn't Eric W. map "kolbottnar" on the original Silvermine map (calling them something else)?

They were called tent platforms on the original map, if I remember right. I do remember being quite puzzled by why so many tent spots would be needed for camping in just that one part of Harriman St. Park, and why they were where they were--it didn't make much sense to me!

Oops - my error in triangle orientation. When the brown triangles started to be used I thought I was copying the French Creek system, having read a very nice write-up by Eric W about the logic of the symbol. I guess I got the orientation off a by 180. I am more than willing to change to a more standardized system with the next versions of our maps. Hopefully this will be my last 180 for a while.

Just a quick note, whomever it was that I ran into very hard leaving the control on the final loop of the 3rd sprint on Saturday, I'm sorry about hitting your shoulder so hard with my head. I punched, turned and as I lifted my head, all I saw was a green t-shirt. I have no idea who it was, but sorry for swearing so loudly (Hammer heard me warming up.) The stars went away around the finish I think. I'm not sure if you in fact lowered your shoulder into me, but if you did, that was a totally solid hit.

This is what happens when you don't keep your head up, ask various Canuks, Lindros, Salad, the CFL.

Nev-Monster...Two minutes for charging!

I am wondering if others found their bodies to much more badly cut and or bruised than normal from that weekend. I have run in thicker and rockier woods but I have a cut between the eyes, on one ear, on my upper lip, all around my neck and two nasty bruises on my right shoulder. That isn't normal.

I think the reason for this was the format of the races. Head-to-head with 4 people in the sprint and big trains developing in the mega. More people close together. While I have been in the woods with lots of adventure racers all going to the same CP it is different. In AR, team mates are generally running behind each other and there are fewer people that can 'see the woods' as well as an orienteer. ie., looking for that gap of good footing or opening between branches, etc. We run faster in the woods not only because of running specificity but the ability to look for openings in thicker areas.

Several times I would look ahead and see an opening but by the time I got there somebody else was jumping into the space causing me to hit branches, undergrowth, etc. that I wouldn't have normally run through.

Also when you have 203 controls you are constantly reading the map and running into trees. Adventure Girl! likes doing that in catching features but it ain't the same 'fun' in reality.

Finally, what was causing all the post race coughing?

Hammer wrote:
I am wondering if others found their bodies to much more badly cut and or bruised than normal from that weekend.

JanetT replies:
Because I was moving faster than usual due to the sprint format and openness of the woods, I fell more (and scraped/banged my knee once). More arm scratches too. So I agree with you that the head-to-head format may have led to more "damage."

Hammer wrote:
Finally, what was causing all the post race coughing?

JanetT replies:
Allergies? (High ragweed-pollen content in the air?) I coughed a lot after the first race; less after the other two, so I think my lungs had a chance to clear things out (adrenaline works to counteract allergic reactions, too, right?).

I have had stuff in my right lung ever since the Middle at the Ice Cave. Volcanic ash?

I got pretty beat up the last time I ran at Pawtuckaway too. Lots of puncture wounds from the pointy, shaded-out hemlock branches. And I think I inhaled my share of hemlock needles. At one point during the race Randy commented that he'd probably die from the quantity of Hemlock consumed.

Who's ever been killed by a little hemlock?

I think you'll be ok as long as you were eating Tsuga canadensis and not Conium maculatum.

At least two people went to the emergency room with gashes in the forehead/eye region - one Sat after Round 2 and one Sun from #29 - that I know of. I had lots of scratches on the forearms from going thru the hemlocks, and also noted the excessive coughing Sat after the sprints.

I had the same experience as Janet. I found it difficult to breath at the end of my 1st run and was coughing for a while. For the next 2 runs I was OK.

Hey folks - let's keep this discussion alive until there have been 203 posts on it!

I had the stitches taken out today. For some reason I never got the big black eyes that the doctor had promised me.

I'm going orienteering tomorrow after 5 days of no activity - yay!

I had experiences in the past of bouts of coughing after running hard enough to be doing a lot of heavy breathing in an environment of relatively low humidity. The worst was racing at in indoor track in the winter (very dry air), a hard mile was bad, after a 3000 meter it was awful. Perhaps the hard efforts (and heavy breathing) and low humidity over the weekend was doing the same thing.

Here's some thoughts from cyclingnews.com--

"Pursuiter's cough"
After racing the Tasmanian Carnival series, I have a question about the so-called "pursuiter's cough". A lot of people, myself included, seem to develop a particularly nasty hacking cough when doing track-endurance type races like 2000 and 3000m handicaps. I didn't feel sick, my throat wasn't sore - I just needed to cough. A lot. Cough suppressants seemed to help a little, but didn't cure me of it completely. As I've asked around, it seems to be a pretty common thing, even amongst those who do this a lot (ie - scratchmen, who are "real" trackies as opposed to mountain biking roadie frontmarkers like myself), but no-one really seemed to know what it was. Do you have any ideas either for a reason or for a cure/remedy? I assume it's connected with the very high intensity workout you can only get from that kind of racing, because as soon as I stopped racing the cough has gone away.
Simon van der Aa
Tasmania, Australia

Scott Saifer replies:
Perhaps one of the other coaches will jump in with a more detailed explanation, but essentially you have irritated your airways by drawing dry air across them. There is no virus or bacterium involved. It's more like a burn than an infection. The healing process takes a few days to a few weeks. My own experience is that I got the track hack the first race session of every season, and that it never returned unless the air was especially cold or dry or I took a few weeks away from the track and returned. The area that is irritated is farther down your pipes than the area that a throat lozenge would reach, so they won't help much. Other than time, regular attendance at track and moist air, I don't know of anything that will bring a cure.

We get such a cough after running the standard NATO obstacle course. It's only 3-5 minutes of (brutal) effort, but the coughing lasts for hours. This seems to occur whether or not the air is dry or cold. It may have something to do with the sand or dust present in some of the landing pits. Breathing in all that grit when you're breathing that hard might cause a "burn" in the throat, such as could be caused by cold or dry air.

I guess if you're breathing hard enough you're bound to irritate something. Did walkers experience the same cough at the meet?

Given the amount of dust in my nose afterwards, I suspect that dust was at least a factor for me. I recall getting coughs after dusty areas rather than just after hard running. (But, I may be pretty well acclimated to dry air nowadays. Except this rainy year...)

Did walkers experience the same cough at the meet?

I don't remember. george, lynn, biggins, kenny, care to comment?

No problem with coughing, but my butt was sore from the 110 mi bike ride the day before.

Yeah - I had the cough, but that was from the running, and I agree with the intense exercise finding as the source of the irritation.

Cristina, JJ, kadley, and walk are pulling yer chain. :-) I don't think anyone walked at the Sprint Finals (or not for long if they did); everyone ran, and tried to run hard, including me (not necessarily noted for speed).

I didn't say anyone walked. The walkers all ran hard.

JJ needs a lesson in capitalization. Did Michael Commons actually run hard?

J-J was just following Cristina's lead on capitalization. I didn't say everybody ran, I only said that the walkers ran hard. I have no comment on the common folk. Or the commons folk.

there's running hard, and then there's running fast....

and finally there's running fast in the right direction....!

Regarding the coughing...I didn't run any harder than normal (based on my h.r.), but I coughed a lot more than normal.

Then perhaps it WAS pollen, or the extra kicked-up dust. (And yes, I forgot about MC.)

it wasn't so much coughing as it was my throat tasting like blood after the first race. but I got over it.