Sunday Apr 10 |
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| Event: Billygoat Run
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 | Orienteering race 1:55:06 [3]**** 13.29 km (8:40 / km) +640m 6:59 / km | |
| spiked:12/20c slept:7.0 shoes: sarva |
| Billygoat, Mt Norwottuck/the Notch, Amherst, MA. Another beautiful spring day; low 70s, still, sunny, dry, no leaves on the trees. My orienteering was imperfect; Randy was in front of me 100 meters from control 9. But moved away after that. It was a good move ex post, it dropped Jon Torrance who then proceeded, along with everyone else in the area, to screw up 10. I saw him once more in a crossover at 12/13, but was on my own after that, and navigating a bit better. At least 10, maybe 15 minutes of mistakes. But enjoyable anyway. |
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| C • Billy 3 |
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27th Annual - Splits |
Saturday Apr 9 |
| Bike (mtb) 1:04:00 [2] | |
| shoes: shimano m-180b |
| great brook farm with Jen and Mo. beautiful, if muddy and icy in a couple of places. not as hard as it looks, but not as easy as it looks either... lots of fun. |
Thursday Apr 7 |
| Running 59:15 [3]8.78 mi (6:45 / mi) | |
| shoes: bruce |
| riverway loop. usual loop. felt tired and sore-legged after yesterday, apparently. warm, almost too warm (63F, warm front passing through). |
Wednesday Apr 6 |
| Running 26:00 [3]3.8 mi (6:50 / mi) | |
| shoes: bruce |
| 100 mem - broadway - concord ave - huron ave - fresh pond. |
| Orienteering race 11:23 [4]** 2.3 km (4:57 / km) | |
| spiked:8/6c shoes: bruce |
| csu park-o, fresh pond. making the map doesn't help you avoid screwing up. third (!) to kenny (by 30s) and Ian Finlayson (apparently one of Andy Hall's East Midlands chums, living in Boston, though I've not run across him before). |
| Running 26:40 [3]3.81 mi (7:00 / mi) | |
| shoes: bruce |
| back via the river. beautiful day; sunny, max 64F, still. even the daffadowndillies were flowering and the poetry was sprouting along the river. this may have been spring in Boston. summer should be here next week, or else it may be winter again. |
Monday Apr 4 |
| Note | |
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| After not really enjoying the first two of the three days on the weekend, I think I have decided not to go to meets involving sprints in the future when they are held on separate days at the beginning or end of the competition and when there is only one of them. It's not a style of race that I'm interested in, and now I'm not really thinking of trying to orienteer except for fun, I don't see any point in going to them.
Midweek park-o and multiple sprints per day are definitely a better option. Also sprints in good terrain (Pawtuckaway). But urban, PWT-style races, regardless of whether they are what the US needs to emphasize in order to qualify runners to the WOC finals, are not what I orienteer for. I want the 80-120 minute runs in the woods. I think I will be choosing A meets that offer them, although I'm cutting back on orienteering this year generally.
Locally, I've lost interest in most maps less than two hours from Cambridge - the novelty has definitely worn off - and I'm not sure I'm very interested in the kinds of events that are being put on locally by either CSU or NEOC. There is no map in the Boston area except Blue Hills West newer than about 2000, if I recall correctly, except for CSU's Park-O maps. NEOC membership is in a death spiral (I see from the latest newsletter that membership has fallen by more than 50 in each of the last two years - down to around 300 now, and more tellingly, average event attendance has fallen from 190 in 1999 to less than 50 in 2004.) If I had the energy to care, it seems like it's time for some drastic steps. We need some marketing skill and effort.
I'll keep coming to meets that offer new terrain, new maps, or good fields, but my excitement about local meets is pretty low right now. I think the call of the new is the problem - time to try some AR and some hiking (oh yeah, and write my dissertation). |
| Note | |
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| An addendum to the above note: I think what I like about orienteering is the lack of marketing, prizes, chest-beating antics and so on that make it what it is. It's just running in the forest. The presence of those elements have made me reject things like adventure racing before, though I'm prepared to give it a go this year - I guess I'm a romantic believer in the amateur ideal. The problem is that I'm far too close to alone in this, hence the declining participation in orienteering in countries (outside Europe mostly) where there is no critical mass to commercialize it.
I think more hiking might be what is actually in my future. |
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| C • 1 |
| Bike (stationary) 50:00 [2] | |
| ahr:149 max:163 shoes: michael |
| random, 14, switched to 15 after 32 min, 100rpm. |