Discussion: The Short, the Long and Poison Oak

Well, there hasn't been much (any?) discussion of the Short and Long this past weekend, so I thought I'd throw out a few comments.

I arrived early enough on Friday to go for a training run at Joe Grant South. Along with Leif Nordgren (promising junior from Minneapolis), we ran a route-choice sort of exercise (10 controls, ~ 5k) just downhill from the Long-course start. Lots of side-hill training. Then, in preparation for the Short-course, we ran a control-picking excercise (11 controls, ~2k) further west in some flatter terrain. I definitely felt a little more tuned in to the terrain thereafter.

The Short (Saturday) went very well for me. After scouting the start (looking to see where others were going, getting the compass angles all sorted out), I proceeded to bobble the first control even though it was very easy. I got my bearing off (a very short leg) and hit a nearby control first. After that, I settled into a rhythm, running hard and effectively. I lucked into a good route choice on the 6th control, going through some dark green that wasn't really that thick. I lost time at a couple other controls (~15 s each time) but overall it was a very good run. The terrain was fun, lots of open woods, with chunks of rock detail, somewhat reminiscent of the short team trials race in Wyoming.

The Long was a different kettle of fish. Lots of side-hill running to start off and long legs. At 12k, I didn't really expect it to be a super-long race, so I ran fairly agressively. The first few controls went well, I took fairly direct routes across the hill, with some walking up the steeper climbs. I ran a couple of long re-entrants early. The first (#2) was pretty rough and difficult, but the second (#4) offered really nice running. Controls 8 and 9 looked pretty tough, kind of like Tahoe last fall and I focused hard and spiked them both. But, relaxing a bit too early, I missed #10, over-running about 100m (~1 min lost). Then, the long leg. This was a bit more straightforward than I expected. The trail was very inviting to start, then some open-spur running down to the bottom, climb up and easy control from the trail. 350 m drop on one leg is certainly a record for me! It was a bit hard to get the legs rolling again for the last few controls after that long descent, but I held on and was happy to have another excellent result.

I awoke Monday morning to find bags under my eyes and I thought to myself that I looked like hell. I had had no luck identifying poison oak out in the terrain, but it had clearly identified me. I now seem to have red and itchy patches scattered around my body. But, my eyes have been the worst. Yesterday, I could barely see out of my right eye it had swollen so much. Anyway, that aspect of the terrain will certainly get a little more respect the next time I return!

As for the Poison Oak (for Brian & others), it's pretty much too late to wash much more oil off (although don't touch your O' clothes - use gloves to put them in the laundry if they haven't been washed yet.)
What you can do is get some Fluocinonide 0.05% (perscription) _now_, you can more or less stop it from getting much worse. It doesn't help nearly as much on any areas that are already really red & yucky, so the sooner you apply it the better. Best results if you put some on, say, a quarter size area around every new little bump you see, just to make sure that nearby skin doesn't flare up as bad.

- Wyatt, who moved out of the Bay Area primarily to avoid poison oak while orienteering. Boy do I like briars more than poison oak :)

Are results posted anywhere for the Short & Long Champs?

The Short Champs are available on WinSplits.

The only proven method is to use Anti Poison Oak lotion before start, than wash twice with Technu under cold shower after race, and Fluocinonide 0.05% (or any other gydricortizone Group II ointments) if rush apears. Group I isn't strong enough.

Poison Oak isn't active in the Fall. The real season starts in Spring.

I ran directly througth p.o. bushes, but still OK. No rush.

Curses, if only Brian had spent about a minute more time avoiding poison oak on Sunday... then those of us who are lucky enough to be immune would run off with undeserved glory...

Thanks to BAOC. I thought the weekend was a good one; in particular the course setting on Saturday was excellent and it was disappointing not to match its quality with a better run (one of my worst of the season; only the first loop of the Hudson Highlander was worse). I felt like I took a few controls to get into the idea that BAOC hangs controls lower than anyone else; this was probably OK here with such high visibility but it would have been nice to note this apparent local custom for visitors (though I guess I should have learnt from Fallen Leaf Lake in 2003). Mistakes on 2, 8, 12 and 13 show up on the splits, but even legs I won like 5 felt like I was either running wide of the line or wobbling in the circle.

Sunday was, I thought, an enjoyable but very slightly disappointing course on a nice map. I'm trying to make some constructive criticisms here - hopefully they won't be taken the wrong way since it _was_ an enjoyable course. Overall, the course had some nice legs, but it was about 4-5km too short (a serious miscalculation of running speed in this fast terrain) and there were a couple of fairly strange legs. The long leg particularly was disappointing with one obvious route (some slight variations at the end, but nothing serious). I've seldom looked at such a long leg with a gross 72 contour climb or descent and not had to think for more than 5 seconds about route choice. Start to 1 was also a dead distance leg with no route choice. Split these legs up with extra controls! Long legs for the sake of it don't achieve anything. But that said, many of the other controls were well chosen, and the whole course was a lot of fun. There were some really good legs: 1-2 had good route choice, as did 3-4, 12-13 and 14-15. The 'Fallen Leaf revenge' legs at 7-8-9-10 required more map contact than many others and I enjoyed them too.

My run still suffered from route choice errors, despite my complaining there wasn;t much route choice - in particular, being caught in no man's land sidehilling from 3 to 4 was the difference between Brian and me. He went low and found the reentrant runnable; I was intending to go high but changed my mind too late. Never change your mind...

It was a nice weekend, not harmed by great open terrain, lovely warm weather (it's 37 in Boston right now with forecast snow for Friday), nor by confirmed sightings of a certain slightly legendary ukrainian cowboy...

I'm still trying to comprehend how Brian ran #6 on the Short-O more than one minute faster than the second best split.

Then again I can see a connection - I had problems relocating after my parallel error on this leg because the green was so much lighter than I had expected from the map. (Maker it harder to realize I was too far North.)

I will definitely come back to Morgan Territory for training - it's a beautiful park with very runnable yet technical terrain.

I was a bit scared of how long the Joe Grant race would be, but I managed to beat my personal target of 150 minutes. As pointed out earlier this Fall by Vladimir, my orienteering is hampered by a fear of climb which makes me veer from the intended route. This is reflected in my second and third splits.

I'm still not sure exactly where I came down the final part of the hill to #11. At the bottom of the hill I had to use my own weight to 'fall' through some very thick, dry thickets.

I heard some rumors that some orienteerers had run into bears on Saturday. On Sunday I saw some pretty fresh evidence that there are Bears in Joe Grant also. I have never seen a live wild bear, so hopefully I'll get to run into one sometime.