Training Log Archive: maprunner

Mike and I were supposed to be heading to Chile today, but our KC flight was delayed and we would miss our connection. So we're trying again tomorrow.

We were both bummed. Mike came up with a great idea. We went for a hike in the Baker Wetlands (someplace I had never been) and then out to dinner. We pretended that our vacation had already begun.

C • Good luck tomorrow and 2

OK training Camp, Day 2A, Hobbs State Park, Rogers AR

We discussed the fact that none of us wanted to go over the area we had been in the day before. Fritz set a new course that mostly stayed on the ridges (and one stream system). But we all had different ideas of what we wanted to do today: D&N went to a museum, Tom ran the course we taped the day before, Mike set his own course, Sandy went for a long trail run, and Blair went for a mountain bike ride.

Only Fritz and I decided to do his course. We were together for the first 6 markers, which was good to keep us both on our toes and deal with the "stress" of seeing someone else. I muffed up 1 but then I got my head into the game and concentrated better.

Number 6 was hard to find due to a vague map and lots of stream bends, so I eventually gave up and moved on. I decided I wanted to reduce climb and not go through the stream bed too often, so I waved at 8 and skipped 9 and 10. This was much more pleasant orienteering than yesterday, despite the fact that the temps had dropped overnight to near freezing.

C • ridge course 3

OK training camp, day 2B, Hobbs State Park, Rogers AR

When I finished the course, I decided to explore a little bit more until it was time to meet up with the others. I followed the old road (faint purple line on map) and checked off some contour features along the way. It was also cool to see how the forest was reclaiming (or not) the old road bed.

And then my brain was finally tired after two days of concentration, and I ran/walked back on the trail

http://sprintseries.org/doma/show_map.php?user=map...

We cleaned up and changed and headed off to Crystal Bridges. If you have never been there, you really should go. The grounds, the museum building, the art, are all wonderful. We first went to the Frank Lloyd Wright House (they moved one from NJ and set it up here). Then we all split up to explore the museum on our own for a little while.

The drive home was a bit dicey, with rain, sleet, snow, etc at various stages. Sometimes the road was fine, sometimes is was not. A bit stressful having to pay attention so carefully the whole way from Pittsburgh through Overland Park. But fortunately, the weather and roads improved as we got closer to home so we ended on a nice stretch of driving. And better yet, mom and Ron invited us over to enjoy Sedar leftovers, so we didn't have to cook!

OK training camp, day 1. Hobbs State Park, Rogers AR

Tom H drives up from AR all winter long to attend our local events, so we thought we would return the favor. Lidar data for AR became available last year, so Mike started making a remote map of Hobbs State Park. We decided to go down there to check it out in person, and invited other OKers to join us if they wished. Sandy, Blair, Fritz, Dick and Nancy came down too. Tom joined us for training exercises. It was a great group!

We left Lawrence very early Sat morning and made it to Rogers by lunchtime. Met D&N and Tom, and decided what we would do for training. Fritz had designed two control picking courses. Blair, Sandy and I went out on one (and hung tapes) while Tom and Fritz hung tapes on the other. The plan was to run the opposite course tomorrow.

Mike went out exploring the map on his own. Dick and Nancy walked and took GPS tracks of some trails in a different part of the map.

Right away we discovered that the reentrants were BIG and the hills were STEEP. It was hard to go down the hills, or contour across, because they were covered with leaves over lots of loose rocks. We often went down on our rears, either on purpose or by accident. This is also a map in progress, so many of the "cliffs" were actually steeper sections of hills that the software thought was a cliff. Ditto for "thickets": they often were not discernible to us on the ground.

There was one big plus however: the woods were generally very open, with little underbrush or thorns. Very nice, especially up on the ridges.

The stream beds were full of downed trees, but sometimes they were dry enough to be the best choice for walking.

Sandy, Blair and I took our time. We alternated leading to the control, and talked about what we saw, how we were approaching, where we thought we should hang the tape. It was good training with lots of good discussion. But it was also very slow due to tough terrain. We got tired and frustrated. At some point we knew we would run out of time, so we started skipping controls. And we also started talking about the fact that we had no desire to repeat this tomorrow (by running the other course).

We caught up with Tom and Fritz towards the end, and we asked Tom if he could come out some other day to pick up the tapes we had put out. He said yes, and we all breathed a sigh of relief that we didn't have to repeat today.

Also, it was nice warm day but cloudy, so the temps were perfect. Sandy gave us several interesting natural history lessons on ferns and mosses while we out there, too. That was nice.

We drove to our Airbnb and then Sandy and I went to pick up a pre-prepared Easter dinner from a supermarket in town. Came back to the house and heated everything up. Tom and Rebecca, and Dick and Nancy, joined us for dinner. Great food and conversation! Followed by the KU/Villanova game, which was sad, but good to have a crowd to share it with.

http://sprintseries.org/doma/show_map.php?user=map...

short walk at work around all the big warehouses (Amazon et al) next door