Training Log Archive: Atropos

Quarienteering #3?
I had big plans for my quarienteering today. I had found a course at Robert Burnaby Park from 2016 that had hidden all vegetation mapping and expected you to go straight on everything regardless of better routes on the trails. I thought that this would be awesome because I could avoid all the people. Then I realized that the potential for injury on this type of course is rather high and the last place anybody should be aiming for at the moment is the emergency room.
I printed out a WJR course at Robert Burnaby from January 2018 instead as a compromise with myself.

Mom and Dad decided to brave seniors shopping hour at Costco this morning and by the time they got back and the fridge was cleaned, half the day had slipped away and it was 11 am. Not the crack of 9 am start I had been dreaming of.

The park was promisingly empty when I arrived. There were no cars in the pool parking lot and no one visible in the clearing. However, when I started running it was pretty clear that there were still quite a few people out with their dogs even on the little tiny trails and I began to feel a bit like a hunted rabbit trying to avoid people. I was doing a lot of freezing and jumping into the bushes. It didn't feel super comfortable and relaxing. The other problem was that I had grabbed a pair of tights that I don't normally wear and then I remembered why I never wear them, they didn't have a drawstring. I had to keep pulling them up every 5 steps to keep them from completely falling down. I turned around and did some speed work up the hill and a few push-ups in the parking lot. I will see if I can try again tomorrow earlier in the day with a better pair of tights.
I did assist in family gardening by shovelling several loads of dirt into a wheelbarrow and walking it around the block to the front of the house to finish off my "workout".

Quarienteering #2
GVOC has been thinking of strategies for still providing orienteering and community opportunities for the club while maintaining responsible social distancing. One idea that we are playing around with is the phone app MapRunF.
I tried out a course planned by Nathan at the PNE to see how it worked. It was a lot of fun and the area wasn't busy so it was easy to keep many metres of distance between myself and other park users.

PROS
- It works pretty well and is a good substitute for physical flags when worried about contamination
- Strangely, I feel like I look considerably less crazy running around with a phone than a paper map and compass (I got 0 strange looks vs many at Byrne Creek on Saturday)
- The buzzing at each control is pretty satisfying feedback (especially because we are all dopamine fiends for phone feedback)
- If you use the map on your screen, you can zoom in and out as you need to see details and long route choices
- The controls that you have punched turn green so it is easy to keep track of what number you are on.
-You get a time and a GPS track as soon as you finish.

CONS
- The punching is accurate to 3-5 m (which means that you often don't have to get right to the control and can avoid navigating the little map nuances in the circle that separate proficient from excellent navigators)
- You often accidentally punch other controls if you get close to them as you run by and you have to be extra careful not to run close to the finish and stop your time part way through the course.
- I didn't try and use a compass or do any thumbing but I imagine that it wouldn't work that well. You can still orient the phone though.
- It is really annoying when your text group chats are having conversations while you are running and your phone keeps buzzing with text messages in exactly the same buzzy feedback as a control punch - I'm soooo popular, it's a real problem ;-)

Verdict 8/10 Fun, would run again even if it would be even better if it could be a bit more accurate!