Training Log Archive: PG

Part of the night-O map, Brown course is shown. Longer courses were mostly west of the N/S road.

Running on CSU team 3 in the relay tomorrow. If there was a team 4 I'd certainly be on it, the way I'm orienteering these days.

Also on team 3 is Bill, Brendan, and Greg. Team 2 in Ali, Alex, Mikkel, and Ian. Team 1 -- Izzy, Ken, Boris, and Ross -- unfortunately could not make the trip.

Middle distance race at Cuivre River. M21. 5.3 km.

Another run where my orienteering skills seem to have abandoned me. And the result is ending up highly irritated. Which is not where I want to be.

I was determined today to pay attention to the orienteering and also to put out some effort, show a little "fighting spirit" instead of just walking all the time. And I did pretty well for a while. At the 10th of the 16 controls I was 29:10, a couple of the best on the course were about 25-26. Then I botched maybe a minute on 11. Then I really botched 12, 2+ minutes. And then I really really botched 13, 3+ minutes. So it ended up taking me 20 minutes for 10 to the finish and not the 10-11 the best were doing.

Totally pissed. Mostly at myself, also somewhat at the coursesetter, though I'm not sure fairly or not. 12 was a single tree in an area of lots of trees, also rough open and some slash green. But at least a couple I talked to had no problem. But all I could think was, Why would anyone map this as a single tree, and then why would anyone hang a control there?

Obviously the correct attitude is, I don't care where they put them and how they map it, my only challenge is finding them as fast as possible. And cussing the organizer doesn't help in that process.

Who knows, maybe I just can't orienteer for more than 20 minutes at a time anymore?

Legs and arms scratched to hell from the thorns....

Middle map.

C • Scratched to hell... 26

Whoa, was this ever better!

USA Middle distance Champs. Also the first time I'd ever run in a corn maze event.

Lots of fun. Quite different from Mike's, many fewer intersections and wider paths, so I'm guessing the navigation was easier, but it was still very cool. Really had to be thinking ahead.

When we left Ian had the best time (12:4x), don't know if it held up.

Corn maze map.

Middle Blue - Splits

CMOUSA Middle Champs - Splits

Event: US Night & Relay Champs
 

Nice joggeroo -- when you travel with Ali, it's impossible not to have some Ali-speak rub off -- around a sprint course at Cuivre River. 1.7 km course. Night-O' in a couple of hours. Trying not to waste myself in the sprint.

The park brings back memories. Last time here was 1988 (long-O and relay champs), and then the time before that in 1980 for the US Champs.

Somewhat annoying trip out but really could have been worse. Left at 4:30, swung by Amherst, down to Bradley, our flight to Raleigh is canceled, so we're off to Detroit, which is OK, but a 2.5 hour layover, which turns into four hours in reality. But on the plus side, smooth flights, naps on both, plus Alex's friend Sharon was waiting for us at the airport, whisked us out to CR just in time to get in the "sprint." And, in the "could have been much worse" category, glad we weren't leaving a couple of hours earlier when the roads were really icy and lots of accidents including a couple of fatalities in Northampton. By the time we were going the salt trucks had been out, but I was still driving not so fast....

Night O' Champs. Not a whole lot of fun. Didn't care for the course, didn't care for the map, didn't care for my performance. Oh well. Times like this tell me it's time to hang up the O' shoes.

Hooked up with Bill Pullman, who ran very well on his course, had a very pleasant late sandwich and beer together. Then timed watching the World Series perfectly -- turned on the TV and the Cardinals were celebrating, so we could turn it off again.

Tomorrow is another day, I hope....

Brown - Splits

Green/Brown Sprint - Splits

Spent the last 24 hours (and a good bit of time before that) producing four championship events.... :-)

1. Corn Maze classic. I think last year's maze was a little better for orienteering, and it was certainly in better shape, but this one still worked fine, even if almost no one had a legal route. In some cases it was hard to tell whether a "trail" was original, therefore legal, or made by the customers, therefore illegal. Everyone got warned about the difference. But then, what can you do? DQ everyone? Nah, we're not copying the French. Ask people to DQ themselves? Nah, we're not copying the Canadians. :-)

Plus, if the French were stressed, and they had several hours before the Sprint final to sort things out, how would we have managed with, as it turned out, only 4 minutes between the last finisher in the Classic and the first start in the Sprint.

So congrats to Marek for his win. Even if he did skip the party. (Marek is from the Czech Republic, nice fellow, was in Amherst for a conference at UMass, just happened to time it perfectly, managed also to get to the SML Champs over the weekend.)

One interesting thing was how few people noticed that a lot of the letters in the maze had signs saying which letter they were. Made relocating quite easy if you used them.

2. Corn Maze sprint. Fairly straightforward, to the extent that anything in CMO is straightforward. Kudos to Dean for figuring out in advance that the controls for the Sprint would be at the letters S-P-R-I-N-T. Although he was on such a high as a result that his concentration, and his time, pretty much sucked.

Very tight competition, including a tie for first between Marek and Biggins. Two worth co-champions. Note that both meet the eligibility rules because there are none.

And then a bunch of helpers gathered up the controls in the little bit of daylight that was left, and then we headed off to Bub's for what seemed to be a very pleasant post-event party.

Last year the participants came from 8 different states. This year we only had 5 states, but also 2 other countries.

3. RollerSki Middle. The reason for this was to give a few ski-O folks a little more serious pre-season practice on the rollerskis, practice especially in map reading and terrain observation. Not that just going rollerskiing isn't good training, but the more you can simulate ski-O, the more it helps you come winter.

The problem is how to make it difficult enough. I suppose there is a way to set up the mazes that are integral parts of ski-O courses these days, but that seemed beyond me. The best venue I could find was the Northampton industrial park, with the bike trail adjacent to it, and weaving the course around a bunch of the buildings seemed to add at least some map-reading demands. The other way to make it more difficult was to have an accurate map, but one that was really had to read. And a gloomy very early morning. Even if we did delay the first start 10 minutes because at 7 am you still really couldn't read the map.

I think it worked OK. Not trivial orienteering, certainly not trivial to do at a good speed. And they do go fast! I started them all, then drove around to mid-course to watch a little, then back to the finish. That was fun.

4. RollerSki Sprint. This was obviously just a hill climb up the road to the top of South Sugarloaf, about 450' climb in a little under a mile. I put a couple of controls in just to ask for a smidgeon of map reading. There seemed to be a need for something more. Hence the five questions. Mainly to give them something to have to concentrate on while the brain was a little oxygen starved. And also to make the point that it should be second nature to keep looking around and observing the terrain even when it seems like all you have to do is go straight. And, of course, being able to count intersections and remember how many you have passed is a necessary skill. Not enough intersections on Sugarloaf, but a lot of nice orange posts.

So I think this worked OK too. It may have seemed sneaky, but there was a useful purpose in the madness.

The main hassle in all of this is the maps. I'm sure anyone with some OCAD skills could handle that aspect a whole lot easier. Maybe one of these years I'll learn.

Anyway, thanks to all who came. I got a few good memories.

C • All very nice events 9

First just plain run in what seems like a long time. Pocumtuck Ridge fron the south end up to the picnic table, as far as I felt like going, and back. 18:53 up, 16:15 back. Felt OK, but that tends to happen when well rested.

Control count -- last reading was 223 through 9/25. Since then...

33 -- Highlander
22 -- Boulder Dash 1
25 -- Boulder Dash 2
20 -- training Mt Tom
08 -- Mt Norwottuck
16 -- Sprint Champs
11 -- Middle Champs
15 -- Long Champs
24 -- Corn Maze (setting and hanging)

So new total is 397. Getting there.

Event: US Corn Maze Classic and Sprint Champs
 

Hanging controls for the Corn Maze Champs. Nice that there were plenty of volunteers afterwards and everything was picked up in at most 10 minutes.

Hanging streamers for the corn maze. Plus a few repairs to the maze. And actually one map correction, one trail segment was never cut. Seems easier to fix the map than the go out and cut the trail.

It will be very fine.

Two courses. The classic has 18 controls, haven't figured out the distance yet but probably about the same as last year when it was 1.4 km and a winning time of just under 15 minutes. The sprint has 6 controls, probably about 0.2 km, winning time should be under 3 minutes. It is devious, but not as devious as last year.

Entries due today. E-mail me, pg@crocker.com

C • You're going to the Instanbul 5-day?? 4

C • map correction 2

Went to the Board meeting yesterday afternoon. Reasonably interesting, but no WiFi so no live coverage. More this evening.

Long champs in the Middlesex Fells. Brown course, M65, 4.8 km.

Another nice course. I didn't have any problems finding the controls, but in several cases I don't think I was picking the best routes, or executing them that quickly (had to stop a lot to really see the details on the map). But very enjoyable.

Cold early, I was shivering at the start, but that went away in a couple of minutes. And afterwards it was very pleasant weather for hanging out.

I was very impressed by how much work a bunch of the young CSU folks were doing. Three separate maps, three separate finish arenas to set up and take down. And there was a ton of gear. An ambitious program, but it made for a memorable weekend. Thanks.

My course and my routes.

Brown Long - Splits