Training Log Archive: iansmith

Event: NEOC: Harold Parker
 

I arrived at Harold Parker at 8 AM, and Mika and I directed our little army of three boy scouts and two leaders to divide up the controls. The leaders and one scout went to set the white course, Mika took remote advanced controls, and I led two scouts on an intrepid expedition to set six flags. The woods were thick in places, and I left them briefly to bust across a knee-deep stream and set one flag.

After the first loop, I set out alone to set a further 8 yellow and orange controls, and finished up at 9:45.

Warmup; it was slightly longer than this, but not much.

Quickroute. I didn't run off the map, but I dropped my red course during control pickup, and only cropped copies were left.

I put Harold Parker on the schedule when I was planning the fall calendar primarily because the map looked interesting and I wanted to run there. I expected that on November 27, there would be snow on the ground, temperatures would be 30 F, and thirty people would come.

Instead, the high temperature today was about 60 F, and orienteering was heavily publicized over the past week with a story on NPR and an article in the globe. A total of 193 competitors came out today, many of whom were beginners. Fortunately, a crew of boy scouts had contacted me about three weeks ago expressing interest in volunteering at a meet to help earn their orienteering merit badges. One of the scouts, Dan O'Leary, has run green and red courses at past meets. Their assistance was indispensible today, and everyone worked hard to keep the crowd flowing and people heading out.

Mika Latva-Kokko set fun courses, and while the map vegetation and trails are substantially outdated, I found the contours and rock features pretty accurate. The map is interesting, though the runnability varies; the vegetation and bike trails should be updated, but the terrain is technical and challenging.

After working registration and mingling with the crowd, I set out on red. I had set controls 1, 2, 13, and 14, but I started out navigating very poorly through 3. There were a few long legs - 4, 5, and 13 - on which I gained a bit of time. I struggled with green near the circle at 13, and 14 was a challenge. I'm disappointed with how few splits I won, but I put a solid effort. I'm pleased to see 4 minute kms charging up the road en route to 13; I had a little bit of spunk left in my legs after the weekend.

Yikes - ernst really killed it on the finish split; I also was bgallup'd. Apparently I need to raise my game.

Update - after some analysis, I'm less displeased with my performance. I finished first or second on all but three splits, each of which was an error - 3, 4, and 7. I'm upset that I navigated 1-3 so badly, but particularly given that I had a hard weekend, my performance is satisfactory. I was 3:17 behind superman. I can't help but think that Ross would have run sub 50.

C • Attendance 9

Picking up the loop of 8 yellow and orange controls I set earlier. I was really tired near the end. It turns out I had banged my right shin on a rock or tree pretty hard, and I have a bruise. My bones seem to be intact, though.

I was told today that I have strong physical resemblance to teen heartthrob Justin Long.

C • bgallup'd 6

Red - Splits