Training Log Archive: Spike

Orienteering at Chisholm Creek Park in Wichita.

I'm guessing this is the final orienteering event for a while. We decided not to cancel because we figured the turnout would be very small and if we practice good social distancing the risk was low. For the most part it worked. We had a total of 17 starts, exceeding our expectations. It was especially good given the temp of 40F and the general sogginess of the day.

Meangene made the map, set the courses and drove the event. Mary and I helped with registration (following a slightly different protocol to minimize close interactions). Fritz helped out with control pickup.

I ran the course at a decent effort. I was clean. I'm not sure of the route choice decisions. I'll study the map a bit and see how my routes look. I took a hard fall but didn't do any damage. My feet got cold crossing a bit of stream.

Buckley was at our house last night. He came to run the Pi Slam (~42 miles on the river trail). After he'd arrived in Lawrence, the race was cancelled. Eric went out and ran it anyways.

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Edit: Two very interesting sightings at the park's Great Plains Nature Center. They had a tame American Kestrel. One of my favorite birds and amazing to get to see close up. The rarer sighting was Rex Keith and a pack of his family. Fun!

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Warming up and picking up markers.

Dinner for Pam's birthday at the Big Mill. The pizza was good. The place was busy.

A short run on a warm day - mid 60s F. I included 10 minutes at an honest effort and it felt pretty good. But then jogging the last bit home felt like a chore.

Near the house I spotted Meangene!

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Shuffled around on West Campus. I'd add more details, but the chili is ready!

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I thought it might be interesting to look at OK attendance at some recent events.

Rockhaven: 46 starts
Woodridge: 36 starts
Slough Creek: 51

I'm guessing we get different turnout depending on a bunch of factors, like weather, what else is going on, KU basketball and a bunch of other random stuff. But I was curious about location and convenience of the location. So I looked at the number of people who live within a 45 minute drive of each park.

Rockhaven: 293,000
Woodridge: 288,000
Slough Creek: 92,000

The highest attendance this year was at our most remote area. It was also the nicest weather (though the weather has been fine for all three events).

If you add up all three events, OK had 133 starts and a total population of 673,000 within a 45 minute drive. We get about 0.2 starts per 1000 residents within a 45 minute drive.

For some context, if PTOC drew at the same population rate, yesterday's event at Lake Jacomo would have drawn 286 people. The actual attendance was just under 40. It seemed like a bigger event. If you counted actual people, it would have been more as there were several groups. Also, the small parking lot made it seem crowded, I guess.

And for some more context, QOC hosted an event at a place called Pohick Bay recently. They had great attendance - 283 starts. But, if they drew at the same rate per 1000 population, they'd have 663 starts.

It isn't really fair to compare this way, but it is kind of fun.

Long easy jog at the riverfront area. I spent a fair amount of time running in the woods. I also spent 25 minutes jogging slowly on the sandbar searching for bones. I found a few, but nothing especially interesting.

Warm (upper 60s F).

I didn't see any deer, but I saw a Pileated Woodpecker. It is neat to see a pileated woodpecker, but not near as cool as a Magellanic Woodpecker.

A few snapshots - check out how open the forest can be:

https://www.instagram.com/p/B9fZFTdgdy0/?utm_sourc...

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