Training Log Archive: PG

Ah, finally got in a good O event, maybe the best of the year. And first time I'd ever tried this version of orienteering -- Parkling Lot O'.

Arrived at Bradley airport in Hartford a little before midnight. The parking place didn't answer its phone, but the shuttle was running so off we (Ali, Alex, and me) went. No power at the parking office, just a few candles, and quite a crowd of people who appeared to be waiting for their cars.

I checked in at the office, gave them my parking ticket, the woman said it would be a little while, because first they had to find the cars, and then they all had ice on the windshields so they had to be warmed up before they could be driven.

Could I go find my car myself to speed things up? Nope, very icy out there, can't let you go back there.

By now I had used up all my time with her, because there were others demanding attention. Including one complaining that he had been waiting an hour, and another complaining about waiting two hours.

I went out to inform the girls of the situation. Time for a little independent action. Dug out my spare flashlight (putting on the headlamp would have been too conspicuous) and headed out back.

Here's the map and the course:



Notice that there is no course, none marked on the map anyway. No idea where the car was. Also very icy, snow all over the place. A couple of employees also walking around looking for cars, but they paid no attention to me. Within 2 or 3 minutes I had nailed the first control:



I hadn't notice the woman inside doing anything with car keys, so I was hoping....

The car wasn't locked. Reached in, but no key in the ignition. Looked around, there it was on the front seat. Big smile. Warmed up the engine while I scraped off enough ice to see, extracted the car from the snowbank it was in (thank you Subaru). Now time for the finish chute.

Where, as it turned out, my corn maze skills came in handy. The direct route was block by a couple of cars and a van, but a zig away from the exit and then a zag back had me in sight of freedom. In the process, a call to Alex to alert them to the plan -- get the bags, meet me left of the building, fast! -- and then they were running towards me with the bags, and then were we out of there and on the way back to Amherst. And laughing very hard. And wondering how long they may be looking for me car, or me.

The finish chute:



If I could have just orienteered so well out in St. Louis....

C • Fantastic! 6

Relay champs, second leg for CSU 3, Green course, 4.4 km. Another bad run. I can't seem to do this stuff worth a damn any more.

The map.

Blew about 4 minutes on 13. Though it made no difference in the overall results.

Now hoping to get home tonight. No power there, lots of branches and small trees down, branches hanging on the wires. Same at my mom's.

And supposed to leave for Istanbul tomorrow. Who knows.

C • Good trip... 1

Relay Green 1 - Splits

Part of the night-O map, Brown course is shown. Longer courses were mostly west of the N/S road.

Running on CSU team 3 in the relay tomorrow. If there was a team 4 I'd certainly be on it, the way I'm orienteering these days.

Also on team 3 is Bill, Brendan, and Greg. Team 2 in Ali, Alex, Mikkel, and Ian. Team 1 -- Izzy, Ken, Boris, and Ross -- unfortunately could not make the trip.

Middle distance race at Cuivre River. M21. 5.3 km.

Another run where my orienteering skills seem to have abandoned me. And the result is ending up highly irritated. Which is not where I want to be.

I was determined today to pay attention to the orienteering and also to put out some effort, show a little "fighting spirit" instead of just walking all the time. And I did pretty well for a while. At the 10th of the 16 controls I was 29:10, a couple of the best on the course were about 25-26. Then I botched maybe a minute on 11. Then I really botched 12, 2+ minutes. And then I really really botched 13, 3+ minutes. So it ended up taking me 20 minutes for 10 to the finish and not the 10-11 the best were doing.

Totally pissed. Mostly at myself, also somewhat at the coursesetter, though I'm not sure fairly or not. 12 was a single tree in an area of lots of trees, also rough open and some slash green. But at least a couple I talked to had no problem. But all I could think was, Why would anyone map this as a single tree, and then why would anyone hang a control there?

Obviously the correct attitude is, I don't care where they put them and how they map it, my only challenge is finding them as fast as possible. And cussing the organizer doesn't help in that process.

Who knows, maybe I just can't orienteer for more than 20 minutes at a time anymore?

Legs and arms scratched to hell from the thorns....

Middle map.

C • Scratched to hell... 26

Whoa, was this ever better!

USA Middle distance Champs. Also the first time I'd ever run in a corn maze event.

Lots of fun. Quite different from Mike's, many fewer intersections and wider paths, so I'm guessing the navigation was easier, but it was still very cool. Really had to be thinking ahead.

When we left Ian had the best time (12:4x), don't know if it held up.

Corn maze map.

Middle Blue - Splits

CMOUSA Middle Champs - Splits

Event: US Night & Relay Champs
 

Nice joggeroo -- when you travel with Ali, it's impossible not to have some Ali-speak rub off -- around a sprint course at Cuivre River. 1.7 km course. Night-O' in a couple of hours. Trying not to waste myself in the sprint.

The park brings back memories. Last time here was 1988 (long-O and relay champs), and then the time before that in 1980 for the US Champs.

Somewhat annoying trip out but really could have been worse. Left at 4:30, swung by Amherst, down to Bradley, our flight to Raleigh is canceled, so we're off to Detroit, which is OK, but a 2.5 hour layover, which turns into four hours in reality. But on the plus side, smooth flights, naps on both, plus Alex's friend Sharon was waiting for us at the airport, whisked us out to CR just in time to get in the "sprint." And, in the "could have been much worse" category, glad we weren't leaving a couple of hours earlier when the roads were really icy and lots of accidents including a couple of fatalities in Northampton. By the time we were going the salt trucks had been out, but I was still driving not so fast....

Night O' Champs. Not a whole lot of fun. Didn't care for the course, didn't care for the map, didn't care for my performance. Oh well. Times like this tell me it's time to hang up the O' shoes.

Hooked up with Bill Pullman, who ran very well on his course, had a very pleasant late sandwich and beer together. Then timed watching the World Series perfectly -- turned on the TV and the Cardinals were celebrating, so we could turn it off again.

Tomorrow is another day, I hope....

Brown - Splits

Green/Brown Sprint - Splits

Spent the last 24 hours (and a good bit of time before that) producing four championship events.... :-)

1. Corn Maze classic. I think last year's maze was a little better for orienteering, and it was certainly in better shape, but this one still worked fine, even if almost no one had a legal route. In some cases it was hard to tell whether a "trail" was original, therefore legal, or made by the customers, therefore illegal. Everyone got warned about the difference. But then, what can you do? DQ everyone? Nah, we're not copying the French. Ask people to DQ themselves? Nah, we're not copying the Canadians. :-)

Plus, if the French were stressed, and they had several hours before the Sprint final to sort things out, how would we have managed with, as it turned out, only 4 minutes between the last finisher in the Classic and the first start in the Sprint.

So congrats to Marek for his win. Even if he did skip the party. (Marek is from the Czech Republic, nice fellow, was in Amherst for a conference at UMass, just happened to time it perfectly, managed also to get to the SML Champs over the weekend.)

One interesting thing was how few people noticed that a lot of the letters in the maze had signs saying which letter they were. Made relocating quite easy if you used them.

2. Corn Maze sprint. Fairly straightforward, to the extent that anything in CMO is straightforward. Kudos to Dean for figuring out in advance that the controls for the Sprint would be at the letters S-P-R-I-N-T. Although he was on such a high as a result that his concentration, and his time, pretty much sucked.

Very tight competition, including a tie for first between Marek and Biggins. Two worth co-champions. Note that both meet the eligibility rules because there are none.

And then a bunch of helpers gathered up the controls in the little bit of daylight that was left, and then we headed off to Bub's for what seemed to be a very pleasant post-event party.

Last year the participants came from 8 different states. This year we only had 5 states, but also 2 other countries.

3. RollerSki Middle. The reason for this was to give a few ski-O folks a little more serious pre-season practice on the rollerskis, practice especially in map reading and terrain observation. Not that just going rollerskiing isn't good training, but the more you can simulate ski-O, the more it helps you come winter.

The problem is how to make it difficult enough. I suppose there is a way to set up the mazes that are integral parts of ski-O courses these days, but that seemed beyond me. The best venue I could find was the Northampton industrial park, with the bike trail adjacent to it, and weaving the course around a bunch of the buildings seemed to add at least some map-reading demands. The other way to make it more difficult was to have an accurate map, but one that was really had to read. And a gloomy very early morning. Even if we did delay the first start 10 minutes because at 7 am you still really couldn't read the map.

I think it worked OK. Not trivial orienteering, certainly not trivial to do at a good speed. And they do go fast! I started them all, then drove around to mid-course to watch a little, then back to the finish. That was fun.

4. RollerSki Sprint. This was obviously just a hill climb up the road to the top of South Sugarloaf, about 450' climb in a little under a mile. I put a couple of controls in just to ask for a smidgeon of map reading. There seemed to be a need for something more. Hence the five questions. Mainly to give them something to have to concentrate on while the brain was a little oxygen starved. And also to make the point that it should be second nature to keep looking around and observing the terrain even when it seems like all you have to do is go straight. And, of course, being able to count intersections and remember how many you have passed is a necessary skill. Not enough intersections on Sugarloaf, but a lot of nice orange posts.

So I think this worked OK too. It may have seemed sneaky, but there was a useful purpose in the madness.

The main hassle in all of this is the maps. I'm sure anyone with some OCAD skills could handle that aspect a whole lot easier. Maybe one of these years I'll learn.

Anyway, thanks to all who came. I got a few good memories.

C • All very nice events 9

First just plain run in what seems like a long time. Pocumtuck Ridge fron the south end up to the picnic table, as far as I felt like going, and back. 18:53 up, 16:15 back. Felt OK, but that tends to happen when well rested.

Control count -- last reading was 223 through 9/25. Since then...

33 -- Highlander
22 -- Boulder Dash 1
25 -- Boulder Dash 2
20 -- training Mt Tom
08 -- Mt Norwottuck
16 -- Sprint Champs
11 -- Middle Champs
15 -- Long Champs
24 -- Corn Maze (setting and hanging)

So new total is 397. Getting there.

Event: US Corn Maze Classic and Sprint Champs
 

Hanging controls for the Corn Maze Champs. Nice that there were plenty of volunteers afterwards and everything was picked up in at most 10 minutes.

Hanging streamers for the corn maze. Plus a few repairs to the maze. And actually one map correction, one trail segment was never cut. Seems easier to fix the map than the go out and cut the trail.

It will be very fine.

Two courses. The classic has 18 controls, haven't figured out the distance yet but probably about the same as last year when it was 1.4 km and a winning time of just under 15 minutes. The sprint has 6 controls, probably about 0.2 km, winning time should be under 3 minutes. It is devious, but not as devious as last year.

Entries due today. E-mail me, pg@crocker.com

C • You're going to the Instanbul 5-day?? 4

C • map correction 2

Went to the Board meeting yesterday afternoon. Reasonably interesting, but no WiFi so no live coverage. More this evening.

Long champs in the Middlesex Fells. Brown course, M65, 4.8 km.

Another nice course. I didn't have any problems finding the controls, but in several cases I don't think I was picking the best routes, or executing them that quickly (had to stop a lot to really see the details on the map). But very enjoyable.

Cold early, I was shivering at the start, but that went away in a couple of minutes. And afterwards it was very pleasant weather for hanging out.

I was very impressed by how much work a bunch of the young CSU folks were doing. Three separate maps, three separate finish arenas to set up and take down. And there was a ton of gear. An ambitious program, but it made for a memorable weekend. Thanks.

My course and my routes.

Brown Long - Splits

Middle champs at Lynn Woods. 2.9 km Brown M65 course. Mostly an ok run, no serious mistakes but not really sharp either. Nice course, but I liked the sprint terrain better.

The course and my route. Just noticed that the finish is misplaced, not that it makes the slightest bit of difference. :-)

Brown Middle - Splits

Event: US S/M/L Champs 2011 & WRE
 

I had a very nice chat with Lou Pataki at the Sprint Champs this afternoon. He is VP-Finance and in charge of the budget for OUSA.

I will just say that Lou is a strong supporter of the Teams.

C • Sprint Champs 12

US Sprint Champs at Franklin Park in Boston. Running the course for really old men (Brown, M65). Managed to go to all the controls this time, unlike the last time I ran such a course, 2 years ago in Rochester.

And I thought it was a very cool course. 1.9 km beeline, 16 controls. My run was decent, not quite planning ahead enough, so a few stops, but no real misses.

I'll pst the map after dinner.

Today's Brown course (M65 and other senile classes....). And my route.

Brown Sprint - Splits

Out for the first time on Earl's Trails, area just west of Norwottuck on the north side of the range.



Basemap by Eddie. Contours are excellent.



I'm sure it will take longer than expected, though how much depends on how accurate/detailed I want to be. The standards have changed a lot over the years, along with people's expectations. I think the hardest will be the vegetation, but I will probably not be as anal about it as it seems the mapper was on other maps I've seen. And the bike trails will take some extra time as they are constantly bending.

Eddie also sent a bunch of templates with vegetation on them. I have to figure out how to incorporate them, and see if they are useful. Today was just a first effort to get things started. At least I managed (with help from Alex last week) to print out a copy of the basemap.

Some nice woods.

C • Looks quite nice - except f... 13

Event: NEOC: Norwottuck
 

NEOC meet at Norwottuck. Did a good bit of the green course, then quit when I got too pissed off.

The course and my route up to #9, which I never found, in the process rapidly losing my enthusiasm. Walked in, went home.

I suppose it didn't helped that I'd been out earlier hanging four controls on the yellow course, and for two of them I wandered around a bit trying to figure out where to put the control -- the lesser of evils approach -- because the map so totally sucked.

And I suppose it didn't help that I then found out we were using an old version of the map.

And I suppose it didn't help that I knew there was a maze of bike trails around #9, and a lot more laurel than mapped.

Who knows where I was. I put up the 305 track, adjusted to go through 8 (that was correct even if the clue was wrong), and and adjusted to where the trail meets the power line (end of the 305 track), and not adjusted in between. Shows I went right by it the first time, but I have no idea.

On the plus side, because bitching get old real fast.... :-)

I had a pretty decent run up to 7, a little more energy than has been the case recently, ran a little more than expected.

And I kept the white and orange courses from being routed through the fish and game club's firing range.

C • ??? 3

Green - Splits

Control picking course at Mt. Tom, set by Alex, nice to have streamers hanging, just to reinforce how badly I am orienteering these days. Mistakes at 2, 3, 4, 8, 9, 13, 19. But I spiked the other 13, whoopee....

Tried to follow Hannah for a bit, but she ran away from me, especially going up the hill to 7.

Skipped the optional line-O that started at 12.

The course.

C • 1:75000 9

And then did the Corridor-O. Never done one of those before, and it was quite good fun. And not so easy, even on a map I know pretty well.

Almost stopped when I got back close to the finish, but figured if Alex had gone to the trouble of setting it, I should do the whole thing. Started to rain shortly thereafter, and then rain hard, and get cold, and rain harder, and get colder. As a result of which I ran faster, though I probably cut a couple of corners right at the end.

What I find interesting is, after spending a little over an hour orienteering with the map, and a quick look at it before I started, it was only after several minutes of looking at it afterwards that I notice the words "Tougher corridor." Seriously. They are the most obvious thing on the piece of paper and I hadn't noticed. I'm not sure if that is appalling, or maybe a sign of very good focus. I guess I'll claim the latter. :-)

The rain let up a little after I came in, but I passed on the "downhill slalom" training. Will do that another day.

My route for both courses.

C • observant 6

Control picking course - Splits

Late afternoon ride, South Deerfield - Whately loop. First time on the bike in quite a while. Legs felt not so bad, certainly much better than in the woods this weekend. And this was right after an 18-hole hilly walk, where I was hitting the ball much better than I was managing to move in the woods this weekend.

I'm beginning to think that moving well in the woods, to the extent that I ever could, is no longer possible. A video showing me staggering/tripping/falling might drive home the point. And keep me from doing foolish things, like night-O's, and blue courses, and Highlanders....

Saturday's route. 14 and 15 were a little feeble, got off my line on both and then wasn't immediately sure where I was, but 16 is the real embarrassment. And the further off my line I got, the thicker it seemed to get. Finally relocated not so badly, but by then I'd already spent way too long traveling way too slowly.

And Sunday's route. A minute or two wasted at 8 and 22, but mainly just really tired and slow. Wasn't that hot, but it croaked me anyway. Quite badly dehydrated when I check the scale at home.

So not very happy with the two days. But all my fault. A very nice event put on by UNO, courses were excellent, map was excellent. And we (Charlie, Gail, and me) had a nice overnight visit with my cousin in Durham. So it was all very pleasant except for when I was out in the woods.

And also had a few chats with folks about the state of affairs in OUSA. And it seems like the finances may be better than many might expect. Meaning maybe enough to keep our ED, plus have some money for the teams. Would be nice, though nothing is sure yet.

C • Saturday #16 2

Some shaky orienteering, but mostly zero energy on a warm day. Just a death march and not a lot of fun.

Sunday's Blue course (M21). Routes later, have to head off to Litchfield.

Sunday Blue - Splits

Event: UNO Boulder Dash 2-Day Classic A-Meet
 

Not so bad for the first 2/3, but then a couple of shaky legs followed by one really bad one. And then real tired too. Pretty disappointing.

Saturday's Blue course (M21).

Saturday Blue - Splits

Finally got around to downloading what there was of my 305 route from the Highlander.

And haven't managed to do any legitimate excise all week....

Total chaos at home since Monday. Getting a bunch of work done -- mainly a new roof (it was time, the old one was more than 20 years old and leaking), plus fixing some inside damage and adding some more insulation in the process. But we seem to be managing fine, even house guests (Alex Tuesday night and tonight, Charlie tomorrow night). Even though last night was a little chilly -- had exhaust fans going in the living room to get rid of the fumes from the insulation, and windows open to let in a good supply of fresh air, and it was 35 overnight.

The plan/hope is to be finished sometime next week.

The tomato plants, fabulously successful, are on their last legs, except they don't seem to know it and have sent out a few new shoots and some new flowers. They aren't going to last long.

I suppose I should do some training, since the post-Highlander excuse is wearing thin. Though I have been getting my daily walks.

And also time to start fieldchecking....

My routes at the Highlander --

Map 1 (Jackie Jones), for controls 4-7 you could choose which 4 of 7 (A-G) you wanted to go to. Smaller version.

Map 2 (the trail run), nasty going SW along the lake, and no streamers from 11 to 12 (and the mapping of the intersection right after 11 was way off), but very flat overall, especially for Harriman.

Map 3 (Rockhouse), and a smaller version. This one seemed to take forever. King of the Mountain leg was 18 to 19.

For history buffs, according to JJ much of this course was what Steve Hale ran astoundingly fast to get the silver medal in the relay (and almost the gold) for Great Britain at WOC 93.

Map 4 (Lake Welch Beach), map used for sprint at Team Trials in 2010. I'd figured we only had about 3 more km to do, was expecting a loop loop back out on Rockhouse, so this was a pleasant surprise for the weary legs. On the other hand, my mind was not so weary that it couldn't tell that the map really sucked. Maybe not so noticeable at sprint speed, but at end-of-Highlander speed it was pretty obvious. Not that it really mattered for what we were doing.

C • WOC 93 relay 25

Event: Hudson Highlander XVI
 

Highlander. Quite good run. Just one bad control, maybe 2 minutes at most. And the legs had a little life, at least for the first couple of hours. Things were hurting a bit as time went on, but still running in bits and pieces right up to the end. It helped a lot that it was cooler than it's been recently, probably in the low 60s at most.

Despite supposedly being fully charged, Garmin died after about an hour and a half. So I'll get to mark my routes the old fashioned way. Will not be hard, knew where I was just about all the time.

Haven't seen any results or splits yet, but this was certainly a whole lot better than last year. And I seem to have survived to O' another day. :-)

Nice trip down and back with Phil. Plus I seem to have taken custody of the bottle of wine that Hannah won, since she can't take it back to West Point. Plan is to open it up in a couple of weeks when there will be CSU (and others) training here on Saturday and a NEOC local meet at Norwottuck on Sunday. And, of course, this being the CSU-Amherst section, a good party in between.

C • Wine 10

C • Scramble 16

Highlander - Splits