Training Log Archive: mikeminium

SWOTH run #69, Fairborn, Ohio. An entertaining hash, with only a few roads, but several soggy fields, lots of woods, and a culvert tunnel under I-675 which was calf-deep in freezing water. On such a cold day, the wet slog was a bit much, but at least the tunnel was tall enough to stand upright.

Event: MVOC Cricket Holler Night O'
 

Event: ICO Camp Belzer
 

"Special Advanced" Course at ICO Meet at Camp Belzer. They called this a brown, but the navigation was orange, although that didn't stop me from making a 2 minute mistake. Anyway, runners did one loop of the 2.36 km, 7 control course with a map as normal, then immediately, without break, re-ran the same course with no map for a total time. Each control had a cutout map piece showing just the next leg in case you needed to refresh your memory. There were 2 or 3 inches (5-8 cm) of slushy snow, so there were lots of tracks (not all going where you'd want them to), and the slopes were very slippery. My second loop was slightly slower than my first on almost every leg, but spiking the control on which I made the error on the first loop, gave me a second loop that was 1:27 faster than the first.

Night Score Course at MVOC's Cricket Holler BSA Camp. I started off really well, but estimate that I blew about 4:30 on two stupid mistakes, allowing Dersu to finish about 2:30 ahead of me. I knocked off 10 of the 16 controls in about 14 minutes (2-4-3-5-6-8-9-10-11-7) and set off full-tilt down a road for a lone control in the farthest corner of the map (13). Unfortunately, I ran right past a control (12) that I'd originally planned to pick up on the way. Coming back to get it took me 3:44, at least 1:30 of which was purely wasted, out-of-the-way. From there, instead of a nice, all-major-trail route to the next control (14), I had a choice of 220 meters through the woods, trying to follow a maze of little paths, or a choice of twice as long by easy, major trails. Oh, that I had either chosen an easy route... or walked the maze paying careful attention. But, I tried to race through the maze and popped out as far from the control as I had started. 6:07 for a 220 meter leg. Auggh! The next control (15) was easy, but the follwoing one (1) required navigating across flat woods. The indistinct trail I was trying to follow inexplicably vanished, and I ended up wasting the better part of a minute trying to find it again, instead of just bearing down and blasting through the green. I hit the control, crashed straight north out of the woods, then used the open area to reach the final control (16).

The good news (for me) is that the course was followed by a Search and Destroy O', and controls collected counted for points, which were added to your original score. I out-scored Dersu in this part, 4 controls to 0, so I ended up winning the event. There's definitely some strategy to Search and Destroy, as several of the strongest, fastest orienteers all raced toward the most dense cluster of controls and ended up limiting each other to just one or two each. I headed instead for what I considered the second most likely group (2-4-3-5), hoping that no really good orienteers would join me and no really fast JROTC cadets would out-sprint me, and I got lucky. In fact, I almost got a 5th control (6), getting there just in time to meet the two cadets who had just taken it down. Cedarcreek worked a similar strategy to mine, sprinting really hard, then going to a less likely corner of the map, ending up with 3 controls and 2nd place overall. Dersu, meanwhile, figured he could outsprint anybody to the closest, easiest control (16), just 75 meters across a field from the start, but he got there second.

Search and Destroy O' (picking up controls) at Cricket Holler. I got my first 4, visited 3 more to no avail, then dropped off the armload of controls at the finish. I checked out two more controls, but they were both already gone as well. Still, 4 controls out of the 16 was enough for a win, although cedarcreek was close behind with 3.

Brown - Splits

Brown - Splits

shovelled about 3-4 cm of fairly light stuff that fell overnight. Maybe 50 minutes early in the morning and another 20 or so finishing up the spots I missed in late afternoon.

M.U. Natural Areas. 3" or so (about 8 cm) of snow, with icy patches underneath.

probably around 6 cm average depth, but wet & heavy.

Miami University Natural Areas, Pine and East loops.