Discussion: West Point Long - Route Choice

I'm curious what the faster route was on the long leg that took racers from the NE portion of the map and close to the finish area. There was the straight route or the long trail run to the east. The leg was similar ('ish) on:

Blue- Elite: 11-12
Red-Elite/Blue: 9-10
Red: 6-7

I went east through the start on 6-7.

I took the dirt road for the first part but cut back towards the straight line after the saddle above the start. I was pretty happy with that. RG

Road

I took the road. Sergey went straight. Road split was 1 minute faster

I went straight, lost a minute, not clear whether that was route choice or my slowing down late in the course. I also took the zigzag trail at the end to get closer to the control, but straight there might have been better.

Morten (fastest split) and I (third fastest split) ran the road to the left. I then took the indistinct trail (upper one), whereas Morten went more to the right through the forest to the dirt road. He pulled away from me here, despite incurring a bit more climb. The indistinct trail was sort of rough, and I had to slow down a bit to find it.

I took the road around on the East but it was pretty painful running down the steep parts on the road, the bottoms of my feet were not very happy after that

I went straight and was pretty clean, but I did spend about 1:45 of my split time standing at the control control circle, tying my shoe and eating a gel.

DD, you do know that if had tied your shoe and eaten your gel 1:18 faster you would have been fastest Canadian in both the middle AND the long TT.

Looks like there will be shoe tying and gel eating drills coming your way soon, DD.

Having to stop and tie a shoelace during an event = orienteering fail.

Blueberry bushes can untie the most solid of knots (it's the only thing that undoes the knot I use). But I guess there are other types of lace securers to try.

Or the super secret substance called “tape”.

Tape didn't hold together so well in the swamp. I got tired of deep blueberries, so figured just cutting through the narrowest part beat trying to go around since it was all nasty, anyway. Retying commenced on the other side...and lesson learned about that route choice!

Daisy chain.

Salomon laces, though they tend to come with Salomon shoes.

Kitty Jones at a SassPeepre camp in 2013 (I think, may have been another participant) showed a method of tying the shoelaces, and I have not had undone shoelaces since, no matter the material they are made of. Not in any sketch I ever found anywhere, cause it has an extra step from common tying techniques, and takes away from the extra length of the loops that can catch on things. And one can open them easily when the time comes to taking shoes off again.

I went straight and executed pretty well except for a small bobble near the control. As others have noted it seems going round might have been 1 minute or so quicker.

Andrea, is it this one? At step 5 I only send one of the two loops back through, and it looks like the photo and works very well for me (except in blueberry). Perhaps I should add gaiters when I'm in blueberry.

https://www.fieggen.com/shoelace/secureknot.htm

You can get Salomon quicklaces a la carte and install them in whatever shoes you like.

https://www.amazon.com/Salomon-Mens-Quicklace-Blac...

No, it is like this, but in step 9 one takes the yellow loop that goes through under the blue, and instead of tightening, one takes the yellow loop around over the blue and follow through once more along itself (where the first yellow loop went through) and then tightens - or even repeats once more.

https://i.pinimg.com/474x/31/8d/d6/318dd6a8bf74a8d...

I guess no sheep around to keep the blueberries nicely trimmed like in the Carpatian mountains...

I also use the Double Slip Knot (Ian’s Secure Knot). Easy and secure.