Training Log Archive: Matej

Event: BAOC: Big Basin
 

A brutal course through some very interesting terrain at Big Basin. Unfortunately, this was also my first DNF in quite a while. Like many on the Red course, I succumbed to the frustratingly vague mapping around control #12. After 20 minutes of traversing re-entrant after spur and attacking from several different angles, I concluded that the control was stolen/misplaced and finished the rest of the course. In fact, the control was there, about 30 meters east of where I was looking. It was debatable whether the area was mismapped or the control misplaced, or a little bit of both. Either way, the low visibility made searching for it frustrating, especially since I knew it was probably somewhere very close by...

Other than that, the course went quite well. My only other mistake was when I senselessly decided to cut through a "thin" strip of dark green on the short leg to #15. At first, it went well, but then I reached a 50 meter section that involved crawling on all fours under a thicket of manzanita bushes. The "fast, straight" option turned out to be a two-minute waste of time, and my running shirt resembled a pincushion for next few controls. Fortunately, there wasn't poison oak anywhere near where the courses went...

I was reminded once again of perhaps the #1 lesson I learned while orienteering in Europe this summer: always have an approach into every single control. When I had a series of features or a handrail that led me into a control, everything went well. When I tried hitting controls on blind directional headings, I had to hesitate and relocate in the control circle, wasting valuable time.

I'll post a RouteGadget analysis when it comes up.

Red - Splits