Discussion: The story behind COW, the California Orienteering Week

By cow-incidence, BAOC and LAOC independently decided to have a National Event on the same weekend in March. Once we discovered this, rather than lock horns, we decided to cow-operate and have a COW. So, we mooo-ved the BAOC event to the following weekend and beefed up our offerings by adding some midweek events. (Plus there's a Ski-O weekend near Tahoe the previous week.) We even briefly considered resurrecting the long-moribund National Convention as part of COW, but, hey, we're Californians, not ones to cow-tow to convention.

Don't be cowed by the long distance to get here. With so many events, your trip will still be cow-st effective. So, loosen up those calves and get yourself ready to go! It's going to be a cow of a different color: Blue, Green, (how now) Brown (cow), and so on. Can we cow-nt you in? (Yes, we're going to milk this theme for everything it's worth.) And there'll be cheese galore: Swiss, emmentaler, Siegenthaler, and more.

It's gonna be udderly fantastic! A veritable cow-nucopia of orienteering:

US Relay Champs
US UltraLong Champs
US PrecsionO (Trail-O) Champs
US TempO (Trail-O) Champs
Two Nationally Sanctioned Middle Distance races
A sprint race through a redwood forest, and a PreO in the same location
Training at the amazing Vasquez Rocks
Training at Morgan Territory, site of the 2016 US S/M/L Champs
Two Ski-O days near Lake Tahoe

Holy cow!

Visit our website at baoc.org/COW.

Early registration deadline for O in the Oaks (the Northern California part of COW) is this Sunday, February 12.

The next entry deadline for the Southern California portion of COW is February 26.


Cow-a-bunga!

Sounds like a lot of bull to me.

Just trying to steer everybody down the right cow path. A cow in time saves nine.

Sorry, but i'm rather confused about this extended middle format. What distance is the course going to be and how many controls will be in place for Green? The estimated time is 35-50 which is pretty much a long course. Is the idea to load up the course with lots of controls, so that it takes longer and there is no route choice?

@ JJ and bgr: don't have a cow, man.

Takes me back almost 20, no 30 years, when one time San Diego OC put on an A event over two days at Mt Palomar and the following weekend BAOC hosted the US champs at a park near Santa Rosa. What a great time!!
It was so great that San Francisco had a major earthquake a few days after we left.
I highly recommend the double.

This thread is udderly ridiculous.

@bgr: The idea of an "Extended Middle" is that the navigational challenge will be like a Middle course (that is, pretty technical control placements, lots of changes of direction and quick decision making) but it will take about 50% longer than a standard Middle. This to take advantage of the terrain at Pt. Pinole. That park is quite flat (it juts out into the Bay) and offers very fast running, but there are pockets of technical terrain. I believe that these will be really fun courses.