Discussion: Blue Hills Traverse

If you're thinking of doing the Traverse this year (11/23), it would be great if you would send in your entry to Jeff or let me know your T-shirt size at barb.bryant@gmail.com. T-shirts have to be ordered in the next few days.

The Traverse: Mass start, 13-14 km of advanced-level orienteering. T-shirts to all finishers. E-punching on the Traverse!
(There will also be recreational courses.)

Registration: Pre-registration for only the Traverse is required. Send registration fee, t-shirt size, and name/address/tel #/email address to:

Jeffrey Saeger
74 Richards St.
Dedham, MA 02026

Registration fee is $20 if postmarked by November 15, $25 if postmarked after November 15.
Carpool to start by 10:40, mass start at 11am.

Query: if the real administrative deadline is now for T-shirt purposes, why would you not have made the early deadline now? The structure of orienteering event deadlines is sometimes a little mysterious to me. If you want to incentivize a behavior (entries to arrive by Nov 12 or so), why put the earliest financial penalty for entries not mailed by Nov 15?

On the flip side, there are other events where there are early deadlines months and months early. I can see this for O-ringen where you need to know how much accommodation to expect to need; but for a US event, at least one where you aren't going to need shuttle buses if entries exceed a possible number and not otherwise, why would we ever want early deadlines? The only possible reason I can think of is either that you make people enter who otherwise wouldn't (because you `force' them to plan early), or you make them willing to pay higher 'late' fees because they realize it's 'their fault' they are entering 'late' and not getting the 'early discount.' Is this a real phenomenon?

Sometimes I feel people set the event entry structure by throwing darts at a calendar.

Just asking ;)

I think the early registration discount (market friendly phrasing) is valuable because it encouranges people to register in advance which then has the following effects:
a) it encourages them to get their travel arranged in advance too, increasing their chance of coming (it's often harder to arrange travel at the last minute, even if even entry were possible then) (I see feet mentioned this above)
b) it gets people talking about the event, and officially listed as registered well in advance, which then encourages others to come to the event too
c) esp. when offered with a refund-before-date-X option, it encourages the undecided to register, and then inertia often makes them come

All of the above suggests to me that there's value in an early reg. discount.

in this case, I suspect:

d) helps the meet director decide how many maps to pre-print.

(But a firm deadline a week before the race would be better for this.)

Making the deadline earlier would have been good, and believe me I have been thinking the same thing. But we're all volunteers here with lots of other things going on in our lives, and I did not come onto the scene, as the shirt department, until about a week ago. We've already missed the cheap deadline for the shirt factory, and I'd like to make the rush order deadline, so I'd just appreciate it if people would give us some slack and send in the info. If anyone is interested, I can post the shirt design as my thank-you offering. My son David is the artist again this year.

Oh, wait, Dave says it's a secret.

Yes, I really should make this deadline earlier, next year, because we always have this T shirt order problem. Used to be I could get some slack from a local vendor, but with the online vendor Barb is using, and I don;t begrudge her doing so, saves me a lot of work, and D's a much better artist than I, we need longer lead times.
So please, send me you T shirt size now, and then please mail me a check asap.

Forgot to mention, and not sure the website says, I need your e punch numbers too.

Is the traverse a point A to point B with car shuttle ? or the finish close enough to the start to walk back to ?

Are runners allowed to cross Route 28 ? or is there a obligatory route to follow (probably an underpass closer to the cloverleaf with I-93 ? )

The traverse is point to point, with a car shuttle.
Runners cross Rt 28 at a point of their own choosing. The course is laid out to provide a wide "window" of crossing space. Traffic on 28 is fairly light on Sunday morning.
Don't forget to enter!

Also, if anyone needs a place to stay Saturday night, contact me directly.

One more thing. If it's not obvious on the NEOC website, there is no day of registration! Contact me now if you were considering that.
Not sure if directions made it up.
Exit 2 from I 93 onto Rt 138 N. 2000 meters to parking lot on north side of Trailside Museum.
NOTE: this is NOT the location that has been used the past few years at Houghton's Pond.

They are making snow on the ski slopes, bring your goggles.

Traverse 08 is history.
A link to some photos:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/21189852@N03/sets/721...

Thanks to Ross for setting a great course, and Scott Turner who set and hung the rec.(WYOG) courses, then ran the traverse!
Kudos to David Bryant for the artwork and Barb for ordering the shirts.

Thanks also to Jen Schultis for bringing EMS awards and swag, and putting me in touch with Jen Clancy from TEVA who provided 6 pair of their shoes for prizes, and Judy, who baked more prizes.

pretty great that the splits all got imported into attack point. A few duplications, though. Nysse is Erik Nystrom, acjospe is Alex Jospe, bl is Bob Lux. How does one fix that?

I bet these folks were some of the ones that already had entered their own splits for the race. Not sure how to fix it, also not sure how 3mins got lost on Erik's leg to 15.... something in there is fishy. I'm not sure how to fix this, because basically I asked Ken to do it for me :) I sent him the file and he did the rest.

for all of those people who were interested in how the course looked, and some possible routes.... I sent the course to some foreign correspondents and US A-team members Boris Granovskiy and Sandra Zurcher looked over the course and drew how they think they would have tried to run the course ( based on only the maps).

I'm struggling to find a good way to display these maps, and the ones from Sandra got a bit garbled in emailing back and forth, but for now Boris's East



and West

The course and my routes are at the usual place.

Erik seems to have recorded leg 14 as 10 seconds when he put his own splits in. The three who are in there twice all did enter their own splits before the list got uploaded. Uploading e-punch splits is a really fine service.

pretty great that the splits all got imported into attack point. A few duplications, though. Nysse is Erik Nystrom, acjospe is Alex Jospe, bl is Bob Lux. How does one fix that?

If those APers who already put their splits in would click the ? next to their SI-added splits, they can "claim" the Ross-provided splits by entering their SI card number to match them up.

I am pretty sure that self entered split times which have exact ones uploaded by Ken will not be duplicated.

As Charlie pointed out, Erik had a typo, and Bob L also a split which is different than the uploaded splits as well.

As Janet suggests, you can claim your splits, and then once you claim them, you can delete one of them, if you so desire.

in my case, I inadvertently took the wrong split sheet (which was handed to me) - near same total time & failed to notice any difference until Ian Smith, who finished just ahead of me, pointed it out next am. Am accustomed to e-splits w/ name & was not tuned in to small print that was the SI# - which I usually cannot recall anyway, esp since new. I had not arrived at the 'analysis mode' which might have raised suspicion;) - esp the 22secs for last leg which was same as winner (approx 44 yrs younger).

Sorry Bob, that was probably my fault. I tried to help and and take over for Ross, but I may have messed it up :) With the splits online it clears things up!

Found at the traverse.
One RH black SEIRUS glove.