Training Log Archive: CleverSky

Oak Hill/Tophet Chasm, In The Dark. Another place where I used to run a lot 15 years ago. Chilly, but I was dressed appropriately. Footing mostly icy. Missed the turn to get back to the car, so when things started looking familiar, I crossed a frozen marsh to get back to the road.

J-J's Ten (plus one) Memorable Orienteering Experiences List, #8

Lake Lanier, Georgia, 8/8/2001 (US Canoe-O Championships)
Aims Coney and I were the dominant team in canoe-O for a while. Neither of us was a top-notch orienteer, and we were mediocre at best as paddlers (in the few canoe races that we entered, our results were awful), but we were better navigators than any real canoe racers, and better in the boat than the rest of the orienteers. Aims was also big on strategy, particularly when to get out of the boat and maybe portage it. And we trained for canoe-O, pretty hard. We’d get together one morning a week to practice paddling, turning, getting in and out of the boat efficiently, portaging, etc.
Aims had participated in the US Canoe-O Champs (put on by the USCA, not USOF) a number of times before, both as a solo and with a partner, and had done well. The first one that we did together was in Georgia, at the venue where the canoe events had been held at the 1996 Olympics. We flew down rather than driving, so although we brought our own paddles, we had to arrange to borrow a boat. There was a We-no-nah AR available, which was not all that different from Aims’s race boat, but it wasn’t set up for specific orienteering use like his, so we had to make some modifications like adding a temporary center seat and a way to attach our map holders. It was also a challenge to get the boat trimmed properly, because I’m a lot lighter than he is, and this didn’t have the custom mods to allow us to put the heavier paddler in the rear seat. But we managed.
Canoe-O is a little different from regular orienteering in terms of being able to preview the terrain, since most of the other competitors had been training and racing on the lake for at least a few days. We didn’t have that advantage, but we did know where the event center was, and we looked at where the course might go. Then we drove around on the public roads in the area the afternoon before and scoped things out. In particular, we took note of a couple of prominent peninsulas that might be interesting to portage across, and found good spots to do so, even picking out access points that avoided poison ivy. And there was a place up north where an arm of the lake came near the road, with a driveway that we found that led to an abandoned barn covered with kudzu.
Race day came (that’s when we first got to see the boat and set it up), and we drew the last start. I think we had to get the controls in order, but I’m not sure. Aims was convinced that we had to pull out all stops to get an advantage on the faster paddlers, so he had me do a couple of controls on foot early on that might have been false economy. Then we were disappointed to see that #4 was up in a cove that was a dead giveaway to our “secret” portage. But although it seemed obvious to us, I think only one other boat went up and over, the others all paddled around, adding over two miles to the route.
Aims sent me off on foot again to #5 while he waited (that was definitely a bad move, slow going on shore), and we had a tiny time loss on #7 because it was slightly misplaced. Then came the real pivotal move on #8. It was a “dry” control, up a stream beyond the last point where it was navigable, so it had to be approached on foot (and it was a bit further up than shown). Before I got out of the boat, we made a plan, and it involved my probably not coming back.
That control wasn’t far from the kudzu-covered barn we had spotted the previous afternoon. And if I could make it through to that barn, I’d go up the driveway and run back to the finish. Aims would be waiting in case the vegetation was too thick, but it wasn’t, and I did the last mile and a half of the course on foot. I think the organizers were expecting that a few intrepid participants might portage the last little bit through the parking lot, but I definitely took them by surprise when I came running in from a different direction, with no boat, yelling FINISHING!
The rules in those days required only that you get the punchcard back, not the boat, and not the whole team (we successfully got that rule changed in later years). At the pre-race meeting, we had specifically asked about that, and it was entirely clear that running the punchcard back was okay. They did ask where my partner was, and I said he’d be back eventually. He had waited at the place where I had disembarked long enough to be convinced that I wasn’t coming back, then took his time paddling home.
We were the last to start, and the first back, and won that race by 33 minutes. We won three more national championships after that (and were course setters for several more, both individually and together), but we never again won by such a large margin. On the way back to the airport, we were proudly wearing our medals when we stopped at Taco Bell, and they were so impressed that they gave us free desserts.

C • Great story 2

Fractal Trails (Four Corners), In The Dark. I used to run here 15+ years ago, when I lived nearby, and it was the first place I ever encountered the kind of MTB trails that have since become common, where it looks like they've tried to fill the entire area with one long trail that twists and turns so much that if you were to leave it, you'd hit another part of it before you've gone more than a few feet. I'm pretty sure there's a lot more out there than what I ran on tonight. Got fairly well disoriented, and when I hit the power line ride I had to think a bit to figure out which way to go in order to get back to the parking lot. (But I did it correctly.) An inch or two of hard-frozen snow everywhere. GPS track is clearly flaky, because it shows my route crossing itself (didn't happen), and when I was at the end going back on the same trail I'd come out on, it shows are pretty far separated.

J-J's Ten (plus one) Memorable Orienteering Experiences List, #7

Mike’s Maze: Andy Warhol’s Campbell Soup Can (sprint), Massachusetts,10/20/2010
The first CMOUSA Champs had two races, just a Classic and a Sprint. I got pretty thrashed in the Classic, not dealing well with the scale and getting very lost early on. There were two entrances to the maze that year, the normal one on the east and another on the north side. The Classic had us going in on the east and the last control was near the north exit, and from there we ran around the outside to the finish.
For the Sprint, there were only four controls, and I went at it aggressively, getting through the 610 meter course in 3:36. There’s a note on the back of my map saying “no hope of remembering my route”. But I do remember one important thing. The last control was again near the north exit, or so it seemed. But there were a number of zigs and zags required to get to it, and I saw a better way. After coming out of the dead end where #4 was located, there was an open corridor due south to the curving top of the soup can, and that led straight back to the entrance. I think it was that route choice that made the difference, and got me my only 1st place finish in a corn maze event (not counting the corn maze trail-O a few years later when I spiked all of the controls with a drone).

Contemporaneous account here.

C • Ah, that's brilliant, and c... 2

The Woodlands, including the side roads, In The Dark. Connector out to Gilchrist was hard-frozen snow with a dusting of fresh powder, making for some delightful twkinking in the headlamp. Temp still in the mid 30s F, I guess (phone says just below freezing, thermometer is probably on the fritz), and I was a bit overdressed.

J-J's Ten (plus one) Memorable Orienteering Experiences List, #6

Pawtuckaway State Park, New Hampshire, 8/30/2003
[Many of these memorable races occurred before the Attackpoint era, and I had at most a few sentences in my paper running logbook. This is one of the ones where I did have some comments on Attackpoint, so I was able to refresh my memory. I consider myself to have a good memory, but it's well known that eyewitness testimony is unreliable, and the more times you recall something, the less accurate your recollection becomes. I was surprised that some of the details that I remembered about this race were completely wrong. That raises the possibility that a lot of these accounts of memorable events are actually a lot of hooey.]

This was a sprint knockout tournament. The first race was a mass-start, and the results were used as a seeding list for the single-elimination rounds that followed. There were some big names in the field, but herd mentality got the better of most of them, because just about everybody sailed off into oblivion at a few different controls. I somehow kept my wits about me, and took my own path, which was the correct one, and I was the third one back, not far behind Marc Lauenstein, and just steps behind Balter.
See my notes


So, that set me up in a good position; as a high seed, I’d be facing someone in the next round who had been one of the slowest. Specifically, it was Jeff Lewis. I didn’t know Jeff, but it appeared what he lacked in the way of navigational expertise, he could make up for in terms of speed. With the two of us starting together, I was doomed, because all he had to do was to follow me around the course and outsprint me at the end, and I think his friends (Nova Scotia crowd?) were even advising him to do just that.
People sometimes talk about orienteering tactics, but in reality, that’s rarely a real concept. In this case, I had to invent some or there was no hope. Notice that the route on the map between #2 and #3 is missing. That’s because when I got to #2 and Jeff was stuck to me like glue, I just took off fast in a random direction to try to shake him. He waited when I paused to look at my map, and when I stopped to tie my shoe, but then we encountered some people who I knew were on the other course (there was a Red for Masters/Women), but maybe he didn't know that. I followed them a little, knowing they were not heading for our third control, then when he started following them, I quickly hid behind a tree. As soon as there was a little space between us, I took off as fast as I could possibly run the opposite way. I kept it up for as long as I could, and got myself completely lost. But that meant that I had probably gotten him completely lost as well. I relocated and found my way back to #3; my split for that 250 m control was 16:37. I was then in a situation where he had either latched onto another pair of Blue runners, or else he was toast. Once I got to #4 without him, there was no way he could follow me even if he found me. So I jogged around the rest of the course, and as I made my way leisurely down the finish chute, Jack Williams saw me and said, believe it or not, you won your heat. I just smiled and said, I know.
See notes


The next round had me up against Sergei Zhyk, and that was the end of the line for me. But those first two courses went very well!

C • Glad to make the list 4

Reindeer Quest, Chestnut Hill Farm, with Nancy (and Capone and Brook). AP guessed this as orienteering, and that's actually not too far off. We had a map (with trails and contours and open areas and everything), we decided where were going based on that map, and we were looking for things (though they were not indicated on the map). Pretty much covered all the trails at this place, and the potential for actual orienteering seemed pretty low (woods were featureless and kind of trashy). Might work as an introductory area for some local school if things really took off. A bit muddy, and pretty icy in places (could have used spikes). A bit chilly and windy, but certainly not bad for January.

J-J's Ten (plus one) Memorable Orienteering Experiences List, #5

Lake George, Colorado, 6/23/1991 (Team Trials)
It’s not like I had a really stellar run on this course, though it wasn’t too bad. But it’s hard not to include it because it was such an epic course.
Lake George was one of the three maps (along with Saylor Park and Florissant) that were funded by a grant from the US Olympic Committee. Mikell Platt did the fieldwork, and the debut of Saylor and Lake George was at the 1991 Team Trials. Saylor came first, and was used for what is now known as Middle courses. Then came the long course on Lake George.
There’s not too much to be said about the course itself. I could have done a better job on the second control, but the rest went pretty well. At #4 I encountered Paul Bennett sitting on a rock, trying to figure out what to do on the next leg, and I told him to come on, let’s get going. On the way up to the saddle, I knocked loose a big rock that ran over my ankle, and that caused me trouble for the next few weeks (I finally had to use an Active Ankle for a while). And according to my memory, Jim and Mil Plant were staffing the water stop/map exchange – how the heck did they get there? I guess they must have forded the river. But they were so old, Jim was… um… 64? Seemed pretty old back then.
I finished in 8th place. Not too bad. But worth noting was that everybody ahead of me was named to the team (or as an alternate) for the WOC in Czechoslovakia. I had done poorly the day before, so I wasn’t really a candidate, but it felt good to have gotten that close.

The map was in two parts, sorry the scan quality isn't so great on this one.

Northfield-Highland-Turkey Hill. The same temperature that feels warm at night with the moon out seems somewhat less so in the middle of the day in a drizzle. I'm going to make an effort to make every day's exercise a different route from what I've done so far this year, as long as that remains interesting

Long ago (like, until about 500 years ago, I've heard), the calendar used to start with April, or thereabouts. That might make it easier to get off to a good start with New Year's resolutions.

J-J's Ten (plus one) Memorable Orienteering Experiences List, #4

Clark State Forest, Indiana,10/11/2003 (US Rogaine Champs)
I approached Peter Gagarin with the idea of our doing a Rogaine together, and I felt pretty honored when he accepted. We picked the Lewis and Clark Cup, in Indiana, which was the US Champs event, and we drove out to it.
In our pre-start route planning, we determined that it was possible to get most or all of the controls, and the striking thing about the map was that the north and south sections were very different, with the latter being much steeper. At Peter’s suggestion, we planned a route that would save the steepest stuff for the nighttime, because it would be easier to navigate through well-defined terrain in the dark.
Looking back at the map, there’s a lot that I have no memory of. I know there was a huge traffic jam at the first control (#16). We had more errors than I remembered (mostly somehow just missing a control and having to turn back), and I recall that I was able to be useful in terms of navigation a few times. There was also a point, maybe around dusk, when Peter had a blister on his foot and enlisted my help to lance and drain it.
We accomplished a lot during the first part, and as planned, went into the canyons of the southern section in the dark. This was probably the steepest terrain I’ve ever orienteered in, steep enough that you had to do the climbs on all fours and grab trees to pull your way up. Peter got really quiet during this part, later explaining that he was concentrating hard as he was diligently pace counting since we couldn’t see very far (whatever lights we were using were not as good as even the cheap headlamps available these days). The climbs up and over the giant spurs were very taxing, and looking ahead, I was trying to count how many more we had left, and I asked Peter if it was three. He replied that it was seven. Because I was fading, we took the around route from #48 to #41, which was a mistake, because there was a lot of deadfall around the south end of that spur, and we got discombobulated into going up the wrong reentrant.
We got back to the hash house missing only the eleven low-value controls around the lake, and clearly not enough time to get them all. We went for two of them, but Peter could see what a wreck I was, and said that was enough, so we headed in with a half-hour left on the clock. We ended up in fourth place overall. The winning team was Mikell Platt and Jason Poole, and another of the teams ahead of us was Eric Bone and somebody we had never met before who was so strong that he literally dragged Eric around with an early version of the WeGo Team Link while Eric concentrated on reading the map. But we were the first-place Master’s team, so we did win national championship medals. I think Peter was disappointed, he had aspirations of doing better compared to those top teams, but that’s the thing about a Rogaine, you can’t go any faster than your partner. For this partner, it was an all-time highlight, and I’m proud to be one of the people who partnered with Peter, and by my standards, we did really well. It occurs to me that I’m now the age that he was when we did this.
I have the maps from this event (I have virtually all of my race maps), but I was delighted that a search through my old backup hard drives turned up the composite digital map that I created shortly after the event, with our route. As with all of the maps in this series, you can click for a larger version.

Down Holman, trail along the brook, back up and out to Gilchrest and home, In The Dark. About half pavement and half packed snow, another warmish evening (mid 30s F). So much nicer to be in the woods than on roads. Saw a couple of deer.

C • streak 1

J-J's Ten (plus one) Memorable Orienteering Experiences List, #3

Whitehorse Gap, Georgia, 7/1/2004 (Bubbagoat)
I had gone down to northern Georgia for the Convention, not because I like conventions, but because I had been asked to teach a mapping seminar. (I hate conventions.) The class went pretty well, and we had good facilities, including a basemap that we were able to do training on. The base had been made into a finished map that was being used for the convention, and for one session we went on a map walk with Sam Smith, who had done the fieldwork, where he explained to the class the mapping decisions that he had made. I lagged behind, bewildered, because the map in my hand bore little to no resemblance to the terrain. It was terrible. This was gold mining terrain, unusual in the US, but the map was bizarre.
One of the races was the Bubbagoat, a Billygoat-style race held in the South. One of the traditions that they have at this event is that if you run in bib overalls, you get a fifteen-minute head start. Knowing this, I had commissioned Jeanne Walsh to make me a pair of bib overalls out of denim-colored dacron, and they came out great, looking quite realistic. When I showed up at the start and asked for my head start, the meet director, came over, took a feel of the fabric, and said nothin’ doin’. I negotiated then, how about a fifteen-yard head start?, and he said okay. I positioned myself fifteen yards ahead of the (small) pack, and when we flipped our maps, I saw that I had been boondoggled, because he had set us up facing the wrong way and I was fifteen yards behind. Served me right.
Bill Cusworth was my main competition, and he got ahead pretty quickly. Everybody else disappeared as well, and soon I was alone. I have a vague memory that it was either really humid or raining or something. For the next couple of hours, I was struggling through nasty terrain in unfavorable conditions with a crummy map. The route shown on the map looks a lot better than I remember, I felt like I was losing huge amounts of time, and was getting pretty disgusted. We were apparently allowed two skips; for the controls that I did, I measured the course at a little over 8 km.
Finally, I staggered to the finish, exhausted. Bill was there, and a few meet officials, and I was probably grumbling about how tough it had been. They chuckled, not seeming all that sympathetic. At some point I asked what place I had gotten, figuring that the other finishers had gone back to their cars, and I was told, um, you won. Huh? What about Bill? Bill said that he had quit, early on, I think.
Not a very good run. But first place, how ‘bout that?

C • Mapping 4

I decided that for the new year I want to try and have some kind of loggable exercise every day for as long as I can manage. But today I had a headache that I couldn't shake, and I also strained my right lower back sometime in the past couple of days (don't know if it was shoveling or hang gliding or both).

But it's pretty pathetic to have my streak be only a single day.

Warm evening (mid 30s F), so no hat or gloves needed, just a shirt, jacket, O pants, and a headlamp (In the Dark, natch). I also wore these weird shoe lights that I bought a few years ago but had never used, but it was really quiet out there, I saw only two cars. And just the most minimal around-the-block loop that I have available.

Gotta start again somewhere.

J-J's Ten (plus one) Memorable Orienteering Experiences List, #2

Gay City State Park, Connecticut, 5/17/1998 (Troll Cup)
(This one is really petty, but I did a pretty good job.)
I was living in Colorado at the time, but making trips back to New England several times a year. One of these trips coincided with the Troll Cup, but unfortunately I got very sick a few days before the event. I was staying at my parents’ house, and my mother urged me to not go. But I wanted to see the new map that Clint had made, so I compromised and switched from M21 to M-Open Brown. And I went out the first day, coughing and sneezing and wheezing, but I walked every step, never ran even once.
The wisdom in those days was that the old people on Brown were not fast runners, but they were excellent navigators. I was therefore puzzled at the results, which showed me in second place, behind only Al Smith in M65 by about 14 minutes, with Dennis Porter (in my category) 97 seconds down on me. Where were all these other excellent navigators? It wasn’t like I outran them, anybody could have gone at my walking pace. (Things are different these days.)
Sunday was a chase start, and my head cold had improved quite a bit overnight, so I felt like I could run. This being the Troll Cup, it was a chase start, and Peter Gagarin looked at the start list and the course length (4.6 km), and said, you know, you might be able to catch Al (Peter was no fan of his). I decided he was right, and decided to give it a shot.
Catching Al was going to require making no mistakes, and if I pulled that off, I wouldn’t see him until close to the end. Looking at my route, I’d say I did a good job, the only thing that I’d do different would be to leave the trails earlier on #3 and approach the control directly from the south. But it was good enough, somewhere between #6 and #7 (I think), I spotted Al. Easy enough to reel that old man in, and then I stopped looking at my map and just followed him around, a step or two behind, which clearly had him a bit rattled. Right on his tail as we came around the south end of the lake (that Steve Fluegel famously made the cover of O/NA by swimming across), so when we hit the sand I turned on the afterburners and left him in the dust.
A mean thing to do. But my only regret was that PG wasn’t there at the finish to see it.