New Haven Training Weekend
The mass-start handicap race. I spent a long time thinking about people's relative speeds and looking up results to calibrate course lengths so that most people would take about an hour. From the results, it looks like 30 of the 45 people who ran were within 10 minutes of that, so I have to be pleased. Since Becky wasn't feeling up to running the mass start after having already spent countless hours in the forest, she graciously agreed to take care of registration/finish for a while, so I decided to jump in and run. I took Neil's course, which was 9km - a kilometer shorter than the longest versions (Ross, Sergei, and Jordan).
I felt pretty strong, though not fast, from the start and orienteered pretty well for the first part of the course. Made one mistake together with Balter on the northern end of the map, not paying enough attention to the compass while running downhill. Then, around #13 I started feeling low on energy and by 16, I completely bonked. Just had nothing. Out of 16 I ran off towards 1, then realized it and staggered towards 17. The last few controls were a real struggle, walking mixed with jogging and stumbling, and Glen Tryson smoked me from the last control to the finish. I guess the activity of the last few days caught up with me.
QR:
http://www.dxdeluxe.se/linnekartparmen/show_map.ph...
Anyway, I think both the handicap race with individual courses, and the whole weekend was a success, as people seemed happy and excited about the upcoming season. I think we accomplished the goal of kick-starting the spring orienteering season.
Becky was a star in doing pretty much every task imaginable, and managing to keep cool when I began my usual stress-out. Jon Marsden was awesome for helping out at the drop of a hat, despite being a guest, and everyone else stepped in and did small and big things without having to be asked. (Let me see if I can mention everyone who helped: Mike&Marie, Madelene, all the cadets, SGB, Giovanni, Ross, Sam, Ian Webb, Ian Smith, Mattias, Kaspar, Kat, Mary Jo, Ken Sr, George&Lyn, Rick&Susie, and surely others whom I am forgetting.) Thanks to all the wonderful people in orienteering for making weekends like this so much fun!
640/2000