Training Log Archive: TomN

Picking up controls. Dave L. took one of my controls, not wanting to be searching for me after dark in case of a repeat of the Pax River disaster, so I only had 3 to pick up. Something tells me the map was a little better this time. Hardly any need for the compass and only an occasional glance at the map.

QOC Granite Red. I like this area a lot. It has a variety of terrain and vegetation and plenty of contour detail. Probably the most rock features of any of our maps. Maybe the Virginia side of Great Falls has more, but we can't run there now, thanks to the U.S. Park Service.

A slow and tentative start. I'm not sure what went wrong on #1. North to the stream, up over the narrow ridge, then down the spur, but suddenly it was the wrong spur and I was in the creek to the south. A little map study and back in contact. On #2, I kept looking for the cliff a couple contours up, slowed down but never saw it, and then the earthworks were visible but I had to climb an extra contour to get there.

Gained some confidence in the next few controls and picked up the pace on the long leg to 7. Going really well to 7-8-9-10, but ran right by the control at #10, kept going south to the next ridge, and had to backtrack. Then the south edge of the field to the toe of the ridge and easily up to 11. South again from 11, took the trail system to the river junction, and could see the hill with #12 from 300m away. 13 was a tricky placement and I was slow finding it. I need more of that to practice on. Very enjoyable course.

Red - Splits

Put out water for tomorrow's Granite meet. Forgot my backpack, so the jugs were in hand, and it was really nice that they were warm from being in the house overnight (thanks, Peggy). Hopefully they stay liquid overnight. The terrain looks fine, the small part of the map that I had in hand was easily navigable without compass, and the weather tomorrow looks good. I'm looking forward to running it.

QOC Prince William Red. I figured I'd try for a comfortable pace and keep it up for the distance. I got that part of it o.k., but the actual orienteering was another story. I had an inordinate amount of trouble with all of the pit controls. Good attacks, reasonable position knowledge, but all of that wasn't good enough to spot the feature or the control. Except #12, in the clearing on the ridge, which I powered straight into, reading the reentrants above the river. #13 being especially frustrating, with such a short attack from the road where the linear ditch comes down, and inspecting so many pits before seeing the right one.

And, yeah, I completely blew #3, getting sucked into the wrong reentrant far, far to the north. What was I thinking? I did check the control code, and knew I had gone too far (duh!) so when I backtracked and found another ditch control I didn't think too hard about the code on that one. Two extra punches, neither one the right one. Wasn't going to be a stellar run anyway.

Red - Splits

Picking up controls after the Pax River NJROTC event. A steady downpour pretty much the whole time. Valerie had the pickup really well organized, and handed me a bagged and sealed map with a course consisting of 8 controls, 2.4k. There was a fairly long trail run getting in to the first one. Trouble with #2, got to one of those big ravines with complex topography and couldn't locate myself. Then, what a disaster on the 4th control, a ditch in thick vegetation and fiddly little contours, which I couldn't read very well in the conditions, and I just couldn't find it. Tried 3 different attacks and finally succeeded by bouncing off some larger reentrants on the far side. At least a half hour on that.

At this point it was already getting dark, and still raining, and I had 4 more to go, but fortunately they were in a more open area of woods and went quickly. There was one steep slope that was unstable due to the wet leaves and mud, which I MacGyvered up using the technique of repeatedly jamming a control stand into the slope and bracing my foot against it. Oh yeah, it was fun.