After the O' Festival, I had a note from Niels LO with some nice words about the sage (which I have no control over) and also asking about one of the legs from the East Pelican day, wondering about several route choices shown below. I judges that the leftmost looked most attractive from several factors, and that the rightmost looked the least attractive.
But you never really know until you test them, and that's what I did this afternoon, together with Tyler. It was actually something of a double test--I printed the map at 1:15,000 as a test for the new eyeball I had installed several weeks back. The results:
Part A
1) 6:09
2) equivalent to 3) or slightly faster with an adjusted time (I had a bobble near the end of the leg)
3) 5:39
4) 5:09
Note that 4) offered the most full open yellow, and had no side slopes, and perhaps slightly less opportunity to get caught up in deadfall (though that can't be inferred from looking at the map.) Another way of saying it would be this route, from all that I can gather, was the least like the Latvian bush.
This was done at race pace or the best pace I could manage, and running route 4) back each time, also at race pace, with rest at each control.
Part B
No challenge at all for the new eye; I should have printed at 1:20,000 for a real test.
Quite a nice, warm, sunny fall day, and I was out for nearly 2 hours on my bike before running.
I saw a small smoke plume south of the border late in the day yesterday while running. Today there was a good column of smoke coming from the same area with every sign of being a developing forest fire.
No snow today, despite the presence of roller skiers on one of the streets in town.