Discussion: US Team Trials 2007

Online registration is now offered on the website. You can pay online or through mail at the same price. Prices go up in early April.

Please note that no credit card numbers are ever transmitted to us by Google.

Sorry, there is a bug; it will be fixed hopefully today.

You can register now. Please let me know of any problems.

Registered okay, but didn't get through correctly to the google checkout page. Don't know if it's me (I misentered my pw the first time) or the link from the registration page. Any way to try again?

Registering again will just duplicate your entry in the database, and Vladimir can blow the first one away.

Um, okay.

...

Still doesn't work. Got " Oops!
The page you requested could not be found. Please check the page you used to reach this page." when I clicked on the google checkout link.

Yes, we just found several other problems. Hopefully it will get fixed soon.

Okay, I'll be patient. ;-)

I think it works much better now. There is still potential for confusion if you do not plan to run all three days, so please both select "NC" from the course drop-down menu and check the "not competing" checkbox for the events you do not plan to run.

I do not know how many bugs still remain, but the system should be usable. Cristina: I deleted your first try, so you can enter again. Sorry about that.

Is there an event hotel, official or otherwise? Failing that, does anyone have a recommendation for a convenient hotel?

There's a Best Western in Hartland and in Whitmore Lake. Both look to be near the Day 2 site and on the way to/from Day 1 and Day 3 sites.

May we pre-purchase maps of the event sites and/or model terrain maps that are close to the event sites geographically and in terrain type?

Certainly so, for the maps. All three areas have existing maps. Please send me a message indicating which ones you'd like, and each one is $5.00. You can include the message and/or the funds with your online registration.

Late fees start for entries or payments received on 05 April or later.

Two hotels are suggested by SMOC, I posted links to them.

Entries are pouring in, but the statistics are curious... absent some (a lot!) more registrations, the Trials may be uncontested this year! I hope that is not the case.

Late fees start on April 5th. Since there is a secure and surcharge-free way to make instant payments online, we may not give a lot of leeway in the application of such.

Preview maps will be mailed to those who requested them around April 10th.

Preview maps are now available, and will be mailed to all who asked on Tuesday.

If entering online today and strongly preferring not using Google Checkout, can payments still be mailed with a check at the regular rate if postmarked today?

(Call me paranoid, but I just don't like giving Google in any form more personal information than necessary. I'd prefer to pay the late fee rather than use Google Checkout, so I'm just asking for confirmation that I don't yet have to do that. Thanks.)

paying once online would be fine, but 3 separate times for each family member? checks in the mail.

Yes, I know. Google Checkout as we implemented it is not the ideal solution, but I couldn't justify spending hours writing and debugging shopping cart APIs. For those organizers who are considering doing registration and checkout in a similar way, the other major hit to the process is the inability to process non-US bank cards. Google swears it can be done, but the customer has to be an established Google Checkout subscriber already and all Canadians who tried it so far weren't; I can't even test if what they are saying is true, since I don't have non-US bank accounts.

Late fees start tomorrow, so drop that check in the mail today! (and the waiver, preferrably).

Google checkout worked for my swiss credit card. However I had to 'borrow' a US shipping address. I guess that's ok since you're not going to ship anything...

Rick Waldo of SMOC asked me to forward this to attackpoint:

After consulting with Eric Weyman, it has been necessary to change the Sprint venue. The Sprint venue should be changed from Spring Mills to Haven Hill (about 4 miles east). Directions wil be the same as for our club meets at Haven Hill. Anyone sent preview maps should be re-sent the Haven Hill map.

Will there be day of and/or recreational registration available?

Day of, yes. Recreational is up to SMOC, I'll ask.

i don't know if its because i haven't seen enough maps but that silver lake map (near peach mountain) is visual chocolate and ice cream, suitable for framing!

http://www.michigano.org/locations/silverlaketopo....

looks exactly like something out of the catchingfeatures randomizer.

If you aren't on the list as confirmed as of now, you owe the higher fees.

and thats just a snippet - you have to feast your eyes on the whole thing. I would post if i had time to learn and do, and it was ok w/ smoc and.... yeah, it looks like a fantasy world of some sort. sim-mapping.

Lazy as I am, could the organisers put their heads together and come up with one or more suggested campgrounds? Thanks.

i'm camping at silver lake, just a couple of easy bike miles from day 2. and then at pontiac lake campground, ditto day 3. Probably just sleeping in a bivy sack, i'm pretty sure a tent or two additional wouldn't be a problem if anyone wanted to share my sites w/ me.

i would like the silver lake map which is near the day 2 event to warm up on. I had asked for it, but finally figured out i got the (gorgeous) day 1 highland map instead. would it be possible for me to buy the silver lake map?

Info has been added on camping and training. Allan Newman says "the Silver Lake map is of very poor quality and not representative of the competition maps."

Childcare will not be offered.

even if the silver lake map is poor, it will give me something to look at while i run through terrain that is different from what i am used to. where do i send my $5? the registrar's adress no longer seems to be listed on the site?

You can pay on arrival.

I can attest that the old Silver Lake map is trash. I ran on it in prep for the SMOC meet a few years ago. If you do use it, stick to the east side - that seemed much better.

I just finished mailing the preview and training maps. E-mail me right away if you don't receive them by this Friday, 20 April.

I ran yesterday on the Pontiac Lake map. If you remember it from 1995, the vegetation has changed a lot, and it's not for the better. The Long day will be a real challenge, both physically and mentally. The courses are fair, but may be tougher than any TT courses I can recall since 1993. More specific info about the terrain and the mapping will be available one week before the event.

Got mine in the mail on Friday. Thanks Vlad.

So the Pontiac Lake map is the Long, and the one you labeled Peach Mtn is the Middle. I guess that would leave the Sprint on the bigger, unlabeled map. What is the scale on this one?

Is it possible to get start locations or at least whatever we are allowed to know (i.e. parking)?

Oh, and are we really going to be charged the late fee for registering on time but not paying on time? I was hoping to show up to the event with cash and the no-payment-option-other-than-cash-college-student excuse.

I guess that would leave the Sprint on the bigger, unlabeled map. What is the scale on this one?

Looks like the big, unlabeled one is Spring Mill, the not-sprint-venue-anymore.

Some of you will get the (unlabeled) Spring Mill map and then the Haven Hill map later as a separate mailing; some will get both in a single envelope; and some will only get Haven Hill. The scale for both of those is 1:10,000. There wasn't a cost-effective way to print the whole of either at 1:5,000. We'll try to do our best to bring the symbols on the 1:5,000 version close to compliance, but I cannot promise ISSOM and ISSOM for the Sprint will most likely not happen.

Some course notes have been posted. Start times will be available before Monday.

I'm getting a "Not Found" error when I click on the links for the Middle and Long course notes.

Some course notes

Day 2 notes have been posted, and so have been the start times. Day 3 notes and course lengths will be available very shortly.

Start times for the Trialers are determined as follows: Day 1, reverse order of your USOF ranking for 01 May 2006–30 April 2007; Day 2, reverse order of Day 1 finish; Day 3, reverse order of Day 2 finish. So, the Day 1 start times will be adjusted when USOF rankings are updated; for most people the start time will not change by much, but some who just got ranked with 4 days will see their start position change a lot.

Event handouts have already been made, so for those of you in the Trials, the envelope label may not have the exactly correct start time for Day 1 and of course it will not, for Days 2 or 3. The authoritative start lists will be posted at the ConCorde Inn and the Best Western. We do not expect that start times will change (on our side, compared to what's posted right now) for anyone not in the Team Trials.

I updated the start times according to very preliminary standings leaked from the very preliminary rolling rankings. Trialers can expect subsequent small adjustments to their Friday start times all the way through Friday morning.

All event notes and start times have been updated. There will be no more updates to these web pages until the event, unless there are major developments.

The weather promises to be happy: highs of 17–19 °C, mostly clear. See you all there! Good luck to those who are trying for the Team!

Good skill.

Listen to the man, he knows what he's talking about...! Good skill it is.

Will there be recreational courses (I can't figure out from the web site), and if so what is the start window? I'm thinking yellow.

SMOC is not offering non-competitive registration.

OK, thanks, V! That would explain the lack of anything about recreational courses on the web site. Bummer.

And let me add for the record that I am hugely grateful to SMOC and T/D for putting on this A meet and am very much looking forward to it! Oh boy oh boy!

Very short (approximate) Sprint results:
Men's winner: Michael Sandstrom - ~45 second gap to 2nd (then Ross, John, Eric & Clem)
Women's winner: Samantha Saeger - ~ 3 minute gap to 2nd... (then Viktoria & Cristina?)

The sprint course:

http://okansas.blogspot.com/2007/05/us-woc-team-tr...

Start times for Day 2 Trials are posted. Results and Trials scoring list to follow shortly. Winsplits and Gadget for Friday, probably on Saturday.

Scoring list:
http://www.wyattriley.com/Trials/2007TrialsScoring...

Sprint results:
Splits -
http://www.sju.edu/~sfillebr/Orienteering/sprint_s...

Results -
http://www.sju.edu/~sfillebr/Orienteering/sprint_c...

Wyatt, on your scoring list it says that my brother Christoph did not start the sprint yesterday, but he did. He had a time of 17.36.

Christoph's flight was late, so he could not start within the Sprint start window. He ran in the general start window instead, and was not given a Trials score according to the Trials rules. Same thing happened to Ioana Sell, who was stuck in Michigan traffic.

Did either of them get an advantage from the later start? Most likely not... but, these are the rules...

Oh no! That really sucks for them!

Michael Sandstrom a Jr. orienteer from the New York area, pulled off an excellent run on the Sprint to take 1st. He's likely one of the fastest two or three runners at the event, plus he could think his way through a Sprint course that required quick and clean navigation, especially in the 2nd half. Ross, Clem & Erin Schirm, also improved significantly on their ranking seed positions.

Among the Women, Samantha had an excelent run, passing almost every other female Team Trialer on the course and pulling away over a minute in front - her time was good for 113pts in the Women's Team Trials, and would have been good for over 90 points in the Men's. Viktoria and Cristina were next across the line, with Viktoria having caught and (just) passed Cristina, and a minute or so later, Pavlina pulled into 3rd place, having been passed only by Samantha on the course.

Thanks everyone for the write-ups, times, scores and courses! Not being able to attend, it is great to be able to follow the team trials!

Middle Distance:
As Ross put it, "today, the old men had their revenge". Eddie won the Men's course by as huge a margin as Michael did yesterday - in some very tricky mini-ridge/valley terrain, he caught Sergei V. (3 minutes) and ran away from him while still navigating cleanly. Clem & Wyatt were 2nd & 3rd - both ahead of their seed. This makes two good runs in a row for Clem, which puts him in a much better position than last week for one of a few spots that several Men are still closely fighting for.

In the women's race Pavlina showed her navigational prowess, coming out on top, and both Viktoria & Suzanne weren't far behind in pursuit of what may be the 5th slot on the team.

Tomorrow should be interesting.

The M21 middle distance course:

http://okansas.blogspot.com/2007/05/us-woc-team-tr...

Resutls from Saturday:

By Course:
http://www.sju.edu/~sfillebr/Orienteering/saturday...

By Class:
http://www.sju.edu/~sfillebr/Orienteering/saturday...

Splits:
http://www.sju.edu/~sfillebr/Orienteering/saturday...

Winsplits:

By class:
http://www.obasen.nu/winsplits/online/en/default.a...

By course:
http://www.obasen.nu/winsplits/online/en/default.a...

Very fine courses the first two days, with much appreciation being given to Eric Weyman for his course consulting.

There were a few confused people in the woods today. The forking between Red and Blue courses was pretty extensive, and the course notes warned of close-together controls.

(The scan I made for Red didn't include the location of one Blue control.)

Spike just phoned in the US Team:

Women:
Samantha
Pavlina
Viktoria
Hillary
Sandra
Alts: Suzanne and Kris

Men:
Boris
Eddie
John
Eric
Clem
Alts: Wyatt and Ross

Congatulations to alll!

Winsplits by class:

Sunday splits

2-Day Results

By Course

http://www.sju.edu/~sfillebr/Orienteering/smoc_com...

By Class

http://www.sju.edu/~sfillebr/Orienteering/smoc_com...

Congratulations to all! :)

Can someone please put up a link to the F21 and M21 classic maps? I'd love to see them.

Sorry for sounding dumb, but how is the US team actually determined?

The long answer

RouteGadget for all days will appear shortly. Meaning Monday or so.

I would like to to thank SMOCers—not sure who, exactly—for the rocking shirt. An achievement especially notable against some truly spectacular fiascos of the recent past.

So, Vladimir, I liked the shirt as well. You also appreciated the "simpler is better" philosophy?

I snapped up a shirt today. I couldn't resist, because it looks like a Creamsicle....mmmm, Creamsicle!

Are the final scoring lists for the Trials posted somewhere?

Scoring lists for men and women. Boris was then inserted in position #1 for the men, moving others down. Hillary and Sandra were inserted in positions #4 and 5 respectively, moving others down.

WRE points. Men's points seem quite low to me on the winning side, and a bit too high for the lower half of the list. feet will undoubtedly figure out a good explanation why; I'm a bit too tired to think about this well right now, but the cause seems to be that there was not much standard deviation in the runners' points, and that deviation is in the numerator of the formula. So, even though there wasn't much deviation in the times, either (the term which is in the denominator), the numerator kind of won.

Isn't this a case of self-propagating instability here? A distribution of points that we have in North America, with little std. deviation, begets results with small std. deviation, so if we all keep racing against each other, in the end we'll converge to some crappy 700-point average with rankings of about 20 points on either side of it. Maybe it's time for invited guests with appearance moneys...

On the women's side, Samantha is enjoying her highest-ever points.

It is very remarkable that the Teams chosen are exactly the top five world-ranked athletes for the USA for both men and women, with just about the exact standing order.

I've enjoyed 'watching' the event on the internet and have been very impressed with everyone's performances, both the competitors and the organizer's. The course planning looked great. But I have a question about the M21 & F21 winning times. They seemed quite long to me. Was this intentional or were the competitors slower than expected :-)

(Note: I ask because I'm involved in setting the western Canadian team selection courses on May 26/27 and I'm worried that we're setting too-short courses).

Day 1 (Sprint): I believe there were no complaints about the winning times.

Day 2 (Middle): I believe there were no complaints about the Men's winning/running times. The women's was indeed long. I do not know the chain of decisions that led to that.

Day 3 (Long): I believe Mark Voit, the course setter, and Eric Weyman, USOF Course Consultant, were originally shooting for 90 min men/80 min women. I (IOF Adviser) test-ran the men's course three weeks before the event, and came up with an estimate of 95 miniutes for the GV/winning time. Mark then test-ran portions of the course himself, and also came up with 95 minutes. It was decided that it was not worth modifying the courses to shave off the extra 5 minutes; there was going to be an appreciable loss of course quality. This 95 minute estimate was then released in the pre-event notes, without an estimate for the women—it is usually straightforward to pro-rate the winning time to a shorter course using the known relative strength of the field via e.g. AP rankings.

The winning time for the men was 95:05. However, the GV is slower, probably about 100, so my estimates (and Mark's) are, in reality, about 5 minutes off. This is easily explained by the change in vegetation and visibility that occurred within the week immediately preceding the event. I was not aware that such change would occur—vegetation patterns in different parts of the States are highly location-, climate-, and immediate preceding rainfall-dependent, and I was not aware of how things go in Michigan although I spent 8.5 years in Indiana and Ohio.

I was not involved in course planning other than Day 3 M/F-21+. In my opinion, the assumption "Blue Middle = Green Classic" and especially "Red Middle = Brown Classic" yields running times that are too long for the older folk.

Back to men vs. women arguments: I personally think that women's winning times should be if not the same, then close to those of men. In all IOF Long course planning I have been involved, the GV targets have been 90 men/80 women (adjusted Red GV for the women).

After Tudra's explanation I have examined my impression that the winning times had been too long.

It is only the Middle distance that appears to be too long. The women's winning time was always over the target, but only by a little in the Sprint & Long.

Sprint
* IOF's target: 12 - 15min
* M21: 13:46
* F21: 15:50

Middle
* IOF's target: 30 - 35 min
* M21: 36:53
* F21: 44:52

Long
* IOF's target: Men 90 - 100, Women 70 - 80
* M21: 95:05
* F21: 85:08

(I hope it goes without saying that there is no criticism implied or intended here. I'm just curious.)

Can someone please put up a link to the F21 and M21 classic maps?

M21 long course

All M-21 maps here:
http://my.opera.com/TuorAmandil/albums/show.dml?id...

Thanks, Randy. That looks like an awesome course. I want to run it! :)

On course lengths-
"Was this intentional or were the competitors slower than expected :-)"

I think "neither" is a fair answer, with one exception noted below. Course lengths/ winning times were discussed, but were certainly not my top priority as course consultant.

Quoting from wyattriley.com, the "long answer" link above-

"Course Length Guidelines (ESC)
Since 2005 we've had written guidelines about the winning times for Team Trails events.

Sprint: ~15 minutes (could be same course for M/F, with say ~14 minutes for men, ~16 mintues for women)
Middle/Short: ~35 minutes for M&F (usually different courses)
Long/Classic: ~90 minutes for M, ~75 minutes for F (must be different courses)
Hitting these times dead on is not as important as setting a good course. If times are within 10%, there should be no complaints. If times are more than 20% off from these targets, there probably will be a few complaints... "

Actually I didn't read this until the other day, long after my input was over, but this is pretty much what was in my mind, especially the emphasis on quality over lengths/ times. From my indoor seat, I could only guess on the speed of the forest, and as long as the distances seemed "ball park", I didn't worry. I left it to the course setters to assertain the speed of the terrain as best they could.

I believe I made comments to the effect that winning times in the Sprint and Middle, might appropriately err on the long side to better represent US times at WOC, not WOC winning times.

I must admit I (we?) didn't have a clue that Pontiac Lake was on the thick side, until Vlad assessed the situation a short time before the event. He pretty much spiked the winning times.

Also, I was not on top of the length of the women's Middle course which was not normally proportional, only 600m, and one control, shorter than the men. However, a by-the-book difference of ~1.0km still would not have nearly equalized the times on Saturday. Winning women orienteers tend to run 15-18% slower than men. When Samantha S. is "on" she "covers the spread", or better, but unfortunately for her, this was part of the story, but probably not the whole story.

I don't pretend to speak for the course setters, Rick, Al, and Mark, who may have a different perspective on all of this.


While I have the microphone, I'd like to editorialize that I think there is far to much emphasis on nailing winning times at all events, including WOC. I think this subject generates much more heat than light. Winning times happen to be a convenient, easy to measure criteria, but it tells almost nothing about the quality of course design. I put acute angle doglegs in the same category, as easy to observe and measure, but not as important as other issues.

Course quality is of course quite subjective, and difficult to quantify, but ultimately more important. It also takes a little more insight to comment on. Granted, times should be close to the specs, but only enough to maintain the character of each event (Sprint, Middle, Classic). For some events, like relays or live media events, there may be organizational reasons to pay more attention the times.

Enough.

RG for the three days.

Other niceties are coming.

I was the course setter for the middle. Following is my question to Peter and his and Eric’s response:

Peter,

There is some confusion regarding the expected winning time for the short
event. What would you like it to be?

My assumption was something in the 30-35 minute range. Last year was 31 and 33 minutes for the women and men, and that seemed about right.

Eric’s response:

If it is up to me, I would say shoot for 35 for the TT Middle, and perhaps err on the long side. I think/ guess that the top US times at the WOC events are more like 35+ for qualifying and 38+ for finals.

Having said that, I value course quality above hitting the numbers

I would just like to say that the courses were great. The middle and the long were certainly not easy, nor should they have been. The winning times might have been lower with clean runs, but clean runs were a rare commodity.

I also agree with Eric's comments to the effect that hitting the winning time is not the primary measure of a good course.

For at least the last several years we have had really good courses at the trials, thanks to a lot of work by the course setters, all pushed by Eric (as our course consultant) to keep trying to make them better.

While I'm at it, I'll pass out a couple more thank-yous -- to Vladimir for his work making the WRE on Sunday happen, and also his work to make sure the map printing was excellent, and to Sandy and Valerie for once again taking their operation on the road and handling all the e-punch operation.

I hope everyone who ran at the trials thinks a bit about how much high-quality work all these folks did. Sometimes it's easy to take it all for granted.

I enjoyed both saturday and sunday courses ( and the organization behind) ( did not ran on friday ).thanks to all who contributed to this

Thanks for the candid explanations about target times. I think that maybe I do worry too much about winning times :-)

I just want to re-iterate that I was totally impressed with the courses - they looked fantastic and seem to epitomize the character of the three disciplines.

As a mid-pack runner (and thus one who might take the brunt of a longer course), I'd like to say that I thought the courses were just dandy. Sure, I was out for over 2 hours on Sunday, but I expect an IOF long event to give me a pretty hefty workload. This is, after all, a physical activity and testing stamina is a reasonable thing to do.

As for the middle, it was perhaps a tad long, but the course was so excellent in all other respects that I'd hate to see it compromised just to hit an arbitary number. Excellent work by all.

Friday Sprint Photos

Saturday Middle Photos

These are presented in a messed up reverse order, but I took them on film, and it was hard enough to do this much.

Higher-res click-through files won't be available immediately---possibly over the next 2 to 3 days.

These are completely unedited---several blurry photos.

Side note: I was really surprised at the price of film developing---It's about half what I remember from a few years ago. I'll probably do more film photos in the future.

Looking at the Long map, I'm really sorry I missed Sunday.

Due to the limitations of the terrain on Friday I am not going to comment on that, as far as quality of course setting for Middle and Long, I think they were true championship quality courses, may be on a longer side, but nothing to complain about on men's side - From looking at female's courses but not running them I felt they were a little too long, especially Sundays course, and not only due to bad runability of the woods.

Thanks for posting the photos, Matthew.

I second that! Thanks for the pictures Matthew.

I thought the middle and long were very well designed-- quite interesting and requiring a range of skills throughout. Thanks for all the hard work and thought put into them.

As the Green classic course, I enjoyed running the Blue Middle on Saturday - good idea even if I did start 3 hours after Zan (on shorter Red course). By the time I went out, I knew I had a chance of beating a few blue runners :); oops, then two errors - ouch. And I respect even more the speed of the top 20 blue runners. Comparing splits on my 'good' legs (the course legs, not mine) with mid-level Blue runners should be fun. Wow, those reentrants were deep!

In general, 6.57K is long for Green, especially with this technical terrain, climb, and then the greening up. But 700m of that was the run-in from 13, so just a 'bit long' on Sunday. At 9, I was not so much intimidated by the 1.8K leg; but my thought was, "I'm sure a long way from the Finish!". For me, it felt like a Red course - I gave up that vice 7 years ago. But it was a great course, so orienteering very well from 4-10 really felt good.

Thanks to SMOC for a great event.

I posted the cleaned-up Trials standings (there were no changes to the top scorers, only to the stragglers :) )

http://wyattriley.com/Trials/2007TrialsScoringList... has the Trials standings, with insertions. Anyone have a 2007 WOC team photo I can post on http://wyattriley.com/Trials/2007Trials.htm ? Someone must have had a camera at the team announcement.

All corrections have been included on the website. I plan no further updates to it, unless someone spots inaccuracies.

for some reason John Fredickson looks like James Scarborough on the http://www.us.orienteering.org/
US team members pictures

is that right ??? Eddie looks like Eddie, Eric like Eric, Boris like Boris, but John..tsk..tsk

Hey, it's close, isn't it? Sorry, I'll fix that right away (...if I have a picture of John...).

Next time you might want to contact the webmaster to point out errors like that. Good thing I read Attackpoint. [Webmasters get no respect...]

Well, I didn't find a pic of John, but found one of Viktoria used last year, so that's been added.

I'll add a head shot of John if someone sends it to me (either through the e-mail address on my id or at usofweb @ gmail.com ). Thanks.

Can I please upgrade my picture?

Anytime -- please do! Just send it to me at one of the addresses. I don't need anything big; a good quality/resolution at around the same size as the ones posted would be great.

Any other WOC-ers; if you don't like your picture, send me a new one!

Hey Clem, how about this one?

"You gonna pull them pistols or whistle Dixie?"

Um... thanks?

Some better shots of Clem from WOC 2006 DK:

one
two
three (by Dasha)
four (by Dasha)

I was going to save this one, but this seems as good a time as any:

ah, the summoning :) Used to call runners from the woods, or in this case, slow people from their rooms :)