Discussion: US Middle Distance and Relay Champs

Here is another one you don't want to miss!

The Rochester Orienteering Club will be hosting the 2008 US Middle Distance and Relay Championships, April 19th and 20th of next year as follows:

April 19th - Middle Distance Champs and Sprint Series Sprint (Junior Team Fundraiser) at Letchworth Park
April 20th - Relay Champs at Mendon Ponds Park

For those of you needing to make travel plans for this event, basic information about locations and start times has been added to the Attackpoint event listing. (US Middle Distance and Relay Champs)

More detail (and on-line registration links) to be posted here and on the ROC web site shortly.

As the course setter for the relay champs, I'd just like to add that this is going to be the most awesome event ever. Or possibly better than that. And the more teams that show up, the better the spectating is going to be. Mendon has some awesome glaciated terrain (with excellent running, and the courses set to make the most of it). But it also has a kind of orienteering arena at the start and finish. Let's just say there are going to be more spectator controls than you can poke a stick at. At least six, and I'm working on eight.

There are a lot of late winter / early spring events out there in 2008, but this is going to be one not to miss.

I probably should have held off on this posting until more details are published on the website, but I was out there yesterday checking out control locations, and I can't stop myself. It's going to be sweet.

So, don't let it slip: start getting your club excited about this event now!

Careful feet. Dour economists should spare the effusiveness less they tarnish the dismal science's well-burnished reputation.

Awesome, spectator controls can really make a relay. I only managed about four at some relays in 2001 and 2002, but it made a big difference with the excitement and interest of the crowd. Make sure that you have someone announce where (and when) to look next (otherwise the lead people can be by before spectators start noticing). In addition to spectator controls, legs that cross an open area can be a way to allow spectation of further bits of the course. People attending should think about wearing team, club or distinctive colours. The energy at a high-spectation relay is several times that of a normal relay (which is usually high already).

already excited. this event will be first (outside Ontario ) team event for Stars.

Very cool!
Who's in charge of the relay champs? Curious about whether we could have something suitable for white-level kids at the relays again...

Cool indeed! I'll be there, but I don't know that I'll have a team. Anybody looking for a reasonably proficient M45?

The kids could just go get all 8 spectator controls and come back ;)

I've been told that I'm "in charge", but since I am still so clueless, our many experienced ROC'in A-Meet personnel have promised lots of help.

Anyway, we are planning another Jr Jr Relay. The 2 x White format seems to be the way to go.

Awesome!

I'd just like to point out that the Relay Champs will include the US vs. Canada Challenge Cup. Cross-club team are eligible. I'm not yet sure if the minimum point value will be 4, or something lower (any opinions?).

Yeah, I can make an argument for 4, or at least, for whatever the minimum is for a US Championship team. If it were lower, then you might give some top US people mixed motivations: do I run on a 4-point team for my club, or a lower point team that will have a better chance against the Canadian teams? (There's already a mixed motivation in deciding whether to run for your club's team, or a stronger cross-club team, and a lower point minimum would make that even worse.) Not that this is necessarily a compelling argument, but it is at least something to consider.

Trust me on this---You don't want to propose changing the relay point system this close to the relay.

There's actually a rule against it.

Taking J-J's argument to the logical extreme suggests that we should have a US relay champs where you can still have a legitimate team where not all the members belong to the same club, just with a penalty of (say) 1 point for each different club after the first that the team contains.

If those were the rules, you could have
4-point single-club teams
competing in the same class as
6-point teams with 2 members from one club and 2 from another
and
7-point totally mixed teams.

Which would give an interesting strategic problem. And more eligible teams.

I should add as the course setter that the US-eligible course/class structure will be unchanged from last time. The above was blue-sky thinking for the future. bishop22 was not musing about changing the US champs structure, more about the additional US vs Canada structure which is not in the US champs rules.

And just be clear, I also wasn't proposing changing the point system, I was just saying that, depending how it's structured, the additional US vs Canada structure could impact someone's decision about whether to run on a US Champs eligible team.

I don't know what the US vs. Canada Challenge Cup is, but it seems like it could just piggyback on the existing team construction methodology without any disruption. I know the Canadian bristle at following our rules, or any, for that matter, but they've played nice in the past at the US Champs, adhering to the rules in force at the time.

>but they've played nice in the past at the US Champs, adhering to the rules in force at the time.

or put another way...

GHOLD!

http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/6458/1936/1600/...

they play nice , because they are nice guys. ditto

I am going to propose changing the scoring scheme and team structure rules for the 2008 IS Champs. I'll be posting my changes on USclubmewithahammernet. After I do that, I'm going to poke myself in the eye with a stick 100 times, just for fun.

On-line registration is now open for the US Middle Dist/Relay Champs, April 19th and 20th, 2008 near Rochester, NY.

Here is a link to on-line registration

And more info about the meet can be found at the
Rochester Orienteering Club's website

Register before March 15th to get the best registration fees!

Don't forget - early registration ends for Middle Distance/Relay Champs event on March 15th and the prices go up. Check out the following links for info and registration:

link to on-line registration

ROC's meet info website


Please note that we made some minor updates to the web page - including a menu for the Sat. night dinner. Future updates will include course setter notes and a list of registered runners - so stay tuned.

Hope to see you there!

Hi, I am interested in sharing accomodations and car for duration of the meet. My flight arrives to Buffalo Friday at 9:40 pm and leaves Buffalo on Sunday at 4:30 pm.

Let me know directly at svelichko@aptina.com - I will gladly share your expenses.

Meet and Course notes have been posted to the meet web page. We also attempted to send out a model area/warm-up area map to e-mail addresses of registered runners. If you have not received this email and are interested in a copy, please send a request to Rob at:
rahklh@frontiernet.net

The model/warm-up map will also be available Saturday morning at registration.

Just a reminder to everyone traveling to Letchworth this weekend to give yourself enough time to get to the event location at Trailside Lodge. The south entrance is closed but an alternate entrance (Castile Entrance ) can be used which is toward the south end of the park on the west side. If you choose to enter at the north entrance and travel the length of the park via Park Road, please give yourself plenty of time to get to Trailside lodge. The park road is 15 miles long, is posted at 20 mph and it can take 30 to 45 minutes to travel the length of the park. The road is in good condition.

If you miss your assigned time, adjusted start slots on the Red Course will be difficult to manage.

Thanks and see you Saturday.

Are there any Canadians out there who are available for a relay team? Katarina and I are hoping to team up with a couple more Canucks and put together a competitive team. We're already worth 4 points, so we can join up with just about anyone. Otherwise, maybe we'll each have to run two legs...??? ;-)

Preliminary results for the Middle Distance Championship event and fund raiser sprint at Letchworth State Park are posted to the meet web page. Links can be found below....

Middle Distance Results

Middle Distance Splits

Sprint Results

Sprint Splits

There are also some photos posted here.

I think the full results will be posted in the not-too-distant future, but in the meantime, for those anxiously awaiting the Relay results:

4 pt Relay
DVOA (Wyatt & Angelica Riley, Greg Balter, Sergei Zhyk)
CSU (Brendan Shields, Alex Jospe, Peter Gagarin, Ross Smith)
USMA Black (Jon & Victoria Campbell, Michael Norris, Jordan Laughlin)

The top Canadian team (Robbie Anderson, Randy Kemp, Brian Graham, Jon Torrance) mispunched, so DVOA also won the Challenge Cup.

8 pt Relay
WCOC (Pavlina Brautigam, George Walker, John Goodwin, Joe Brautigam)
Killer Bunnies - NEOC (Jeff Saeger, Carl Underwood, Samantha & Hillary Saeger)
HVO Super Russians (Yekaterina Dvinyaninova, Valery Doverov, Kseniya Popova, Sergiy Gnatiouk)

WCOC also won the Challenge Cup.

12 pt Relay
DVOA (Alison & Heather Campbell, Jim Eagleton, John Campbell)
EMPO (Janet Tryson, Susan & Phil Hawkes-Teeter, Glen Tryson)
DVOA Too (Zac Barker, Lynn Aldrich, Rob Wilkison, Fred Reed)

The Challenge Cup was captured by OOC (Alexander Bergstrom, Molly Kemp, Gord Hunter, Stefan Bergstrom)

Jr Jr Relay
Stephen Kohler - Evalin Brautigam
Tommy & Robbie Graham
Zach & Luke Lyons
Chris & Melissa Tylock
Tim Dobretsov - TJ Hawes
Anthony & Oriana Riley

Preliminary Results and Splits for the Relay are now posted:

Relay Results

Relay Splits

Thank you ROC and their multitudes of volunteers who put on a fantastic, seemingly flawless weekend. I have not been in those two parks since 1990. It was great to be back.
I don't know what will be a more inspiring memory for me - the 'Grand Canyon' that runs through Letchworth Park, the site of so many orienteers criss-crossing the open area of Mendon Park or PG's booming drives on the golf course. (Well maybe that last one comes a bit behind the others)
Thanks also to my young Ottawa team mates, Alexander Bergstrom and Molly Kemp - and the not so young Stefan Bergstrom- who helped us get a 'Challenge Cup' I can show off at the office.

Yes, thanks for a great weekend (and the super weather was another plus!), fun courses, and excellent organization.

there was a bug preventing people from adding splits for races from this event. I had to remove the 3 races already created, but it should be safe to add them back now.

also, go CSU!!

Here is a link to a nice slide show from Saturday. It's supposed to have a soundtrack, but being at work, I haven't checked out the sound, yet. The picture selection seems quite nice, though.

I think we'll also have some photos to post from the relay.

Sound track works - great selection! :-)

And here are some course maps for the relays. OCAD is playing up, so I don't have the final formatting and I'm missing the brown and white courses. Note due to forking these are samples - your course would likely have been a little different.

Files are .pdf and quite large (red is 3.4M, for example).
All controls; numbers below 100 are recreational controls.
Red (leg 4 on 4/8 pt relays).
Green (legs 1 and 3 on 4 pt, leg 3 on 8 pt, leg 4 on 12 pt).
Orange as intended (leg 1 on 8/12 pt).
Orange (leg 2 on 4 pt), with a control unintentionally missed out - I only caught this today.
Yellow (leg 2 on 8/12 pt).
Brown and white may come later.

Control sequence on brown:
S - (248-203 or 202-234 or 201-203) - 204 - 206 - 139 - 215 - 216 - 218 - 219 - 204 - 222 - 140 - 231 - 232 - F.

Control sequence on white: S-222-203-234-204-(201 or 202)-249-220-250-233-231-232-F.

Here are some more pics from this weekend:

2008 US Middle Distance and Relay Champs

7 pages. Links below each thumb to (T)iny, (S)mall and (M)edium sizes. Drop me a note if you want full-res of any of these. First ~2 pages are from Middle on Saturday at Letchworth, and the rest are from the first 3 legs of the relay at Mendon on Sunday.

Few more sporadic shots here.

As always, if you like to have full size pictures, e-mail me.

Thanks for the results, maps, and pictures everyone!

And just a few images from this past weekend are also available at:

http://orienteering.smugmug.com

Enjoyed the weekend so much that I clean forgot to take pictures! Thanks to ROC for a nice weekend of racing in complex, challenging, relatively bramble-free terrain. And thanks to Mother Nature for reminding us that finally, winter is over....

For those of you not on ClubNet:

Several items were left in Rochester over the weekend...if they are yours let me know and we can arrange to reunite you with your property.

compass w/Scout logo, pink string
compass, Silva Polaris, yellow string
gray, Ultimate Direction water bottle
charcoal gray (or maybe black) sweats, Gap, size small
red, LLBean fleece w/purple trim
wrist band clue sheet holder, used by someone on red

Linda Kohn
Wornerkohn [at] aol [dot] com