Training Log Archive: BigWillyStyle

Event: CascadeOC Winter Series & School League #4
 

Winter Series 4 @ Hamlin Park. A disappointing third place, as I thought I had a solid race - but J and Bonesaw ran better ones and got me by 2:24 and 1:14 respectively. I was smashing early on, especially in the first forest bit, and was in the lead through 10, but messed up my exit direction and lost ~55s on 11. Also I took two "around" route choices to avoid climb and forest running (8-9 and 13-14) which appear to have been suboptimal. This is interesting because 95% of the time around here the "straight or around" calculus is pretty heavily weighted in favor of "around" unless the difference in distance is quite substantial. In this case I failed to account for Hamlin's exceptionally high forest runnability, nor did I realize the contours were 3m.

Also lost 20s (AKA the rest of Eric's margin on me) on 15 due to a curious situation which stemmed from the fact that the map is originally ISOM, but the school bits had been updated with ISSOM. 15 was situated on the far side of a set of tennis courts on the outskirts of one of said ISSOM school areas. These tennis courts are mapped as pavement with uncrossable fences, with no gaps. In reality, there were several open gates into and out of the tennis courts such that you could cut substantial distance (say, 20s worth) by taking the gates vs. going around. So, is it legal to take these gates? As far as I can make out, ISOM would say yes, while ISSOM would say no. Maybe the scale of the map should dictate, you say? It's a 1:7500 map, ha. Ah, the wild wild west, where we make up our own rules as we go!

Haven't orienteered at Hamlin since my WIOL days, really enjoyed the course. It's the only place in or immediately near Seattle which offers some true white forest of the type someone not from the NW would recognize as such, where you can use a compass like it's meant to be used.

C • out and around 3