Trekking 30:00 [1]
shoes: Salomon XA Pro GTX - Black
Phatty and I met at Forks of the Credit when it was still pitch dark to put out the final controls for Thomass Caledon, then I started setting up the registration area while Phatty vetted yesterday's controls.
The Caledon Navigators club has an awesome group of volunteers. It started with Goose, who gamely carpooled with Phatty at 7 a.m. even though there was little he could do for the first hour because he was racing. Scooby brought an awesome tent with walls, a nice complement to Phatty's Salomon registration tent with its displays of next year's shoe styles. (A number of people asked me if the shoes were for sale. One woman in particular seemed very disappointed, "Don't you have ANYTHING for sale here?") Rocky's big wood fire in the metal firepit put off a surprising amount of heat - really nice.
Racers started to pour in. We had about 65 participants, including a surprising 18 race day registrations, ably handled by George and Janet. Nobody had registered in advance for the Novice course, but a bunch of them showed up on the day. My friend Gorgeous, who had done an hour of intro navigation with me over the Christmas holidays, aced the Novice course. She finished so early that I assumed she must have hated it or found it too difficult on her own, but she phoned me that evening to say that she loved it, and she would go orienteering every weekend if it were nearby. Another competent Novice was LeanimalMom, who looked nervous at the start but seemed to do pretty well.
Phatty had the course designed two months in advance, so we had lots of time for final tweaking based on the latest snow conditions and course test results. He may be the first person ever to use Excel so extensively in designing a Thomass course! We aimed for particular distance ratios for the different handicaps in hopes of achieving a mass finish. It's difficult to design a course at Forks of the Credit because the most interesting terrain is far from the parking lot, but Phatty did a great job of ensuring that every handicap level got to explore some of the coolest parts of the park.
I loved the opening race leg. The racers gathered at a bridge at one end of a long kettle lake, and when Phatty said "Go!", we hoped they would fan out on either side of the lake. I had an aerial view from the parking lot, and it was great to watch it happen exactly as we'd hoped, with runners snaking along both sides of the lake. To our surprise, the runners on the east side of the lake arrived first. In our own tests, we both liked the west side better.
After that, I got some water boiled, then settled down to the task of entering rental SI info and the race day registrations. I'm not sure why - maybe the cold weather - but the PC was excruciatingly slow, even though our SI team got it to work when they tested it at home. I would click my mouse on the SI field, then wait 30 seconds for the cursor to appear so I could start typing, then I'd do the same thing for the racer's name, course and rental SI status. Hmmm, I started to panic that I wouldn't finish before racers started arriving, and sure enough, MrPither sailed in at 52:13 in 1st place. We were excited to see him, since that was right around the winning time we'd expected, and he ought to do well if the course had been designed fairly.
The top 5 racers had 4 different handicaps, and about half the racers finished within the first 15 minutes. Congratulations to Phatty for achieving a textbook Thomass mass finish on his first time out!
Meanwhile, none of the real SI people were back yet (I was just babysitting), and I made the horrifying discovery that downloading a single SI card was taking about 5 minutes to process, and I could only do one at a time. We still don't know whether the borrowed PC was too slow or whether it got too cold or whether CN's serial download unit is too slow, but there was some factor that caused it to blow up on race day.
Not to worry, we'd arranged alternatives. Plan B was that Sid had brought his laptop with the same SI software - but when he saw CN's serial download unit, he shook his head and said that it was probably our problem. In spite of many tries, his PC wouldn't recognize the download unit via the serial to USB converter - it needed a driver. Plan C was to use the OOA splits printer, but it refused to print. By this point, my blood pressure was through the roof. Hammer calmed me a little by reminding me that our SI team could download results from the controls if necessary. Then fortunately, SI-Clive finished his race and discovered a tiny, secret switch on the splits printer that convinced it to print. Yahoo, we got print-outs from all the SI cards. Fortunately, the only racers to leave by then were Tiny and Pixie, who had left their SI cards with me.
Even though we knew we would have results now, I still had a nasty job reviewing the printouts manually against the registration list to figure out if anyone I hadn't seen was still out on the course. By the time I determined that one SI card was still out there, I emerged from the van to find most racers gone and the husband of the missing racer (actually a Mom and daughter on the Novice course) talking to them on the phone. When Phatty went out to pick up the final controls, they were still heading off the trail to look for flags even though they'd been out for 3 hours and knew that the course was closed! So on the bright side, I guess they had fun.
I was sad that I missed the fun part of hosting an event - the opportunity to get a hot chocolate and chat with friends and hear about their experiences on the course. But other than me, it appears that everyone else had fun. Gunda Herzog made her amazing veg chili again and planned quantities perfectly for 70 people. The world famous Crash brownies were a huge hit as always. Salomon provided three beautiful toques as prizes (I was soooo jealous). Crash/PGB was the top woman (yahoo!), and AdventureGirl! was the top junior after an unfortunate error that made her climb up and down the escarpment twice. The Shed Coffee Bar in Belfountain gave us draw prizes. (You could "buy" up to 3 draw prize tickets by showing that you'd brought your own map case, reusable mug and/or bowl and spoon for chili.) Afterward, The Shed offered 50% off any beverage to anyone who showed them an orienteering map, and when I dropped by, the manager said that 28 people had stopped by, including us, and they would gladly support another orienteering event in future.
I was strung out when I got home and was really glad to find 'Bent home from California. I'm sure that last night's 3.5 hrs of sleep didn't help my mood. Then I read Hammer's log and actually cried (note: see the part about 3.5 hrs of sleep) in relief that other people didn't perceive it as a disaster. Then (joy of joys), Goose figured out how to download results from the Finish controls and sent me a spreadsheet of finish times. (Cue the Hallelujah Chorus.) He and Phatty are going to put together results with splits, and all will be well - just a little later than we'd hoped.
Thanks to all the amazing volunteers - from CN and other clubs - who managed the busy registration table, served food and drink, put up tents, picked up controls, kept the wood fire burning, worked on our SI problems, and much more. Special kudos to Phatty for putting together such an interesting race course his first time out. It was great fun to work with him. And thanks to all the racers for your patience and for sticking around to make the post-race social time lots of fun. See you at the next Thomass Caledon!