Discussion: A fantastic weekend of rogaining

... was had by some and missed by others! Nothing Rumsfeldian to see here, keep moving y'all.

There were: running-perfect weather; a precise map somewhere between Eurostandard and ISOM, with passability shown in various shades of green; about 50 checkpoints that made a 50+ km course, some of them very technical; fantastic woods with views of Mt. Rainier; potstickers; a good soundtrack; on-time starts, prompt results, and lavish awards. The following were not observed: expanses of dead trees, halogenated liquids, unmapped roads, or, for those with memories of the 2012 NA Champs at this venue, rental car-grinding roads. There were, however, quite a few unmapped 0.4 m boulders, but since you weren't there to complain, you missed your chance. A trip well worth the "outrageous" U.S. $46.40 entry fee for my last-minute family team entry, plus hundreds more in other expenses.

Congratulations to the one team that cleaned the course in 24 hours.

That was amazing. The weather, the terrain, the map (!!!), and the potstickers (I must have eaten 20)!

Outstanding event. The vistas westward to the Cascades from ridgelines, the navigable forests (some logging slash, but easily avoidable by moving a few feet to the side), control locations that were clearly visible from 25 meters for reasonable directions of approach, and lots of climb/descent requiring rethinking of plan.
the concept of a "clean the course in 24 hours" option allowed mediocre (but motivated) rogainers like myself to experience just about the entire course, rather than having to settle for a third of the controls and wondering what the course was like for the elite folks - a concept that may catch on with the wider group of particpants who do not run for 24 hours non stop.
For those that were not there - we were treated to a mapping style that was detailed but not "cluttered", and multiple choices of route finding allowing use of trails/roads (at the expense of time, but a good way to take a break from bushwhacking). Well done, MerGeo !!!

For those considering our 2015 Henry Coe event on the first weekend of September, the map will be somewhere between Eurostandard and Cleman: only two colors for vegetation (passable and hardly so), lidar contours, exact roads and trails. This will be your next chance to navigate on a lidar rogaine map west of the Mississippi, I'm pretty sure.

Only 50km in 24hrs, was it slow going? That doesn't sound like a lot.

Nobody broke 41 km (straight-line) at our well attended 2011 rogaine. Western U.S. is not for the weak, certainly not the wrong WA.

There also weren't that many fast teams running the 24-hour. My team did about 33km (actual) in 7:54, and we always go at hiking pace. I'd be curious to hear how far the winner in the 8-hour went.

Beatrice and I covered 16.9 km (per Garmin) in 4 hours. Just a bit of running on roads, otherwise walking, mostly gingerly. I'd say this terrain is 110 km-able (actual distance) in 24 hours for the best in the world, so perhaps 85 km straight line is what I would plan a course at Cleman for a hypothetical WRC. I would discount 10% or so for NARC or U.S. Rogaine Champs.

28Cps, 1870points: all 100 pointers. I planned on around 87cms - so 26k (but I called it 30!) of straight lines, but added two more 6 pointers on the way. Second half was very slow for me. I loved the map, sits on my desk now..

Here is the route:
56
60
106
47
53
105
44
108
67
109
52
107
69
102
42
41
101
66
57
104
62
58
100
31
61
48
103
33

Sorry we missed it but life sometimes gets in the way. We knew from the previous event at Cleman that the map is excellent and the terrain enjoyable.

Our mixed team of 70-year-olds went about 58K actual distance as measured by my gps datalogger, and about 2700m of climb. Perhaps 1-2K of the distance was by being a little sloppy on two or three of the controls thus adding in some extra distance and time. My normal expectation would be to cover slightly less than half the distance of the elite teams on a given terrain in a 24-hour rogaine. I don't think that we could have quite managed to get the whole course even had we executed our original plan perfectly, but we were able to visit 35 of the 42 controls (and, during the night, within about 20-30 meters of a 36th a few times) and enjoyed it tremendously. My understanding was that Eric Bone had specifically intended the course mostly for the 4-hour and 8-hour crowd, and had expected that the course could be completed by rather less than elite teams. The weather was great, the scenery magnificent, and the carrot ginger soup at the hash house a middle-of-the-night treat. One main improvement I could have imagined for my weekend was not spending an extra eight hours in O'Hare on the trip home because of the tail end of the disruptions caused by the Friday morning control-tower fire, but I'm certainly glad my trip out on Friday went through Newark rather than Chicago--much better to miss a day at work on the way home than the whole rogaine!

It's nice to see the kind words about the event. I'm glad that those who came enjoyed themselves. I did design it to be a longish 8-hour course, so that it would be a challenge for mid-pack 24-hour teams to clear it, and indeed, only one team did end up clearing the course, with somewhat over an hour to spare.

just in case someone wants to see the route:
http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/?r=6453319
turns out around 37k.