Training Log Archive: cedarcreek

2m Radio Orienteering event at Stanbery Park in Cincinnati. Set by Brian D.

Stanbery is a pearl of a park. It's tiny, but it's great for events like this. In the woods tonight, I was actually thinking about Flying Pig events that might make a good fit here. I was thinking of a wooded sprint or sprint relay. A 1:5000 middle farsta. I don't know. It might not be usable as a A-Meet. We're using a fairly poor map, and Vladimir Z. should have his map finished by spring. I'll have to wait for that map to decide. With some good course setting, this park has some potential---if the event is a good match.

My plan was to run out the central ridge and take initial bearings to all the transmitters. When 3 came on (with 2 more bearings to take), it was really strong, and I decided to run it down. Usually when it's that strong, it means it's very close, and I was surprised to find it wasn't close, and that meant I had to cross a steep stream and climb the other hill on a bearing. I got it off cycle, but I had missed the initial bearings to the 4 and 5.

I don't want to go into intricate detail so I'll just touch on the high points.

I got 5 next, wasting 1 cycle (5 minutes).

I got really confused about whether I was going for 1 or 2 next, and when I got 1, I thought I got 2, so I spent 4 cycles (20 minutes) making a big loop back to 1, and then to 2.

That left 4, and I had some bearings from far away that crossed no-where near where 4 actually was. My only option was to run at it when it was on, keep moving, and try to be in a really good spot when it came on again.

There were reflections *everywhere*, but I thought I did really well sticking to a plan and not committing to extra climb until I was sure. It was a fairly small area, and the signal just didn't make a lot of sense.

The high point of the day was twice when I was not in a good spot when the next T was coming on. Radio Orienteering is this really complicated mental exercise, and every once in a while you realize that if you don't go as fast as you can for the next minute or so, you're going to waste 5 more minutes. So twice tonight, I was going all out. It was only a minute each time, but there were some terrifying moments where I was totally committed. I was most worried about spraining my ankle and whole body wipeouts onto rocks. It was so fun.

Did I say this already? This was the most complicated radio course I've seen at Stanbery. I was off-balance pretty much the whole time. I probably spent 12 minutes standing on hilltops DFing transmitters to just figure out where to go next. That's uncommon in a larger course. This was the equivalent of a sprint. It was just information overload, and you couldn't wait for a perfect set of information. You had to commit to something, and committing meant losing the high ground and putting up with reflections---not having a single signal pointing at a transmitter. Another thing I like about radio orienteering in general (not just tonight) is the advantage you have if you can visualize the shape of the terrain, and understand if you have a direct view to certain spots.

Anyway, it was a blast. When I get my real time, I'll edit this.

I volunteered to get 1 and 5, and I broke one of my personal course setting rules---Never go out near dark without a headlamp. It was cloudy, and getting darker by the second, and the only light I had was a 5mm LED on my keys. I was pushing pretty hard near 5 (the more difficult one), and pushed hard to get back to a recognizable trail, where I figured I'd be okay.

But as I was almost back to the car, I saw Bob struggling to walk up a trail to my left. I asked if he was okay, and he said no. He had some major leg cramps, and appeared to be in a lot of pain. He had gotten close to picking up 2, but crossing the streambed just wasn't in the cards, so he came back in. So we had one transmitter still in the woods, and it was dark. What were we going to do?

Luckily, I just got a new headlamp, and it was in my car because I took it to work to show my friends, and I took it to this event to show...my friends. It's always a little worrisome to find a radio transmitter in low visibility fight because there is no requirement for it to be on a mapped feature---It is okay for it to literally be a transmitter in the forest. It's usually a good strategy to take a radio receiver with you. I was forced by circumstances to not take one. And by luck or by skill, I pretty much spiked it. (I actually had a GPS with it marked, but I didn't even remember to look at it until I had found it.)

The headlamp is still amazing. It really lights up the map---almost too bright. Almost. It's really easy to read. I was playing with 10W and 20W, and I'll probably use 20W more. 10W is fine for a trail or in fight (where 20W is too bright), but in the open forest, the 20W setting is better.

Quick run in the vicinity of my hotel. I planned to run Tuesday evening, but I collapsed on the bed and woke up after midnight. So I decided to get up at 5:30am and run.

I'm doing the happy dance.

I got my Headlamp in the mail today. It's a Silva 478 (see here and here). I bought it from sailgb.com (or extremegb.com , same company) because it was the cheapest headlamp I could find. That was before I found out the Swedish companies list their prices with 25% VAT added in, and the actual prices are lower if you're not subject to the EU-VAT tax. (Although you should verify that if you decide to order---My one order from a Swedish company was shipped using that 25% portion. I would have asked for cheaper shipping if they'd asked me.

Anyway, the headlamp was $113 with about $20 shipping (I think). I didn't buy a battery because they're outrageously priced. Instead, I bought NiMH cells (Sanyos) from a battery supplier and made the pack myself. I paid about $50 total for a 10-cell, 8000mA-hr pack. (Although right now I've got it configured as two 5-cell packs.) I did buy extra connectors from Sweden so I can make more packs and some connectors for hooking up test equipment (like a voltmeter or ammeter).

I opened the box and stuck it on my head. It was a lot lighter than I expected, and it doesn't bounce at all. I have been charging and discharging my 5-cell packs, but I hadn't actually soldered on a connector, so I went into the basement and got it ready.

I finished in about 20 minutes or so, most of which was looking for wire and a weird set of crimpers. I tried it out outside, and it was really cool. It's a lot of light.

It was a little after 10pm, and it took me about 2 seconds to decide to go for a run. I know, I know. Running on the street, in public, with one of these on is just about the geekiest thing one could ever do. I didn't put heatshrink on my pack, I just stuck it in a ziplock and used the pack from a small camelback (1L?) under my T-shirt to hold the battery.

I was really surprised by the light. It's very even, with two areas. The spot is a little wider than a sidewalk as you're running, and 2 or 3 times as long. The flood is very wide and very nice for map reading. Wearing the battery on your back is the way to go. The headlamp feels so light on your head.

I think my two bulbs are reversed. The directions say moving the switch left is low, and on mine it's high. The low beam (10 Watts) is physically lower than the high beam (20 Watts). I'll switch them sometime and see how they look the other way. I used low for 95% of the run. It was all I needed. The few times I was in a really dark spot, I put it on high. It was brighter, but I really need to try it in the woods.

I can really see why Spike loves his headlamp.

Amazingly, I ran all the way up the big hill tonight. A few weeks ago I felt like I was completely out-of-shape, and then I go to a night-O and run for most of an hour, and now this. I'm doing better than I thought I was, but I really need to get out the door a lot.

And I got a headlamp! w00t!

C • 5 cell pack 3

Event: OLOU Night-O and Sprint
 

2m Radio Orienteering at McFarlan Woods in Cincinnati. I've seen the park on prettier days, but I don't think I've ever seen it better for orienteering. I think the horses haven't been using the trails or something. The trails were smoother, and the forest seemed a little bit whiter.

The course didn't take us into the far corners of the park, but it was still a fun day in the woods. I was running much easier than I expected, but the hills did take it out of me. I don't know what I'll have left tonight for the OLou Sprint and Night O'.

C • New shoes? 3

Walked in to get 5 and 4. They were on the central cool hilltop, so it was climby getting to them. This might be a 2 intensity.

Sprint at Tom Sawyer SP near Louisville. A 1:4000 map, but with 1:10000 features and circles. The map was made in the last week, which is just amazing. Pretty simple as sprints go. Too few controls. Needed a few intense short legs. One of the faster sprints I've ever run. Below 10min/km is amazing for me.

1 hour score O' at Tom Sawyer SP near Louisville. A really fun course. It was interesting in that the setter gave us difficult choices for how to get all the controls. Often a score O' has a CW or CCW path that makes it boring. This one had lots of little complicating controls that you could choose to get from multiple directions.

The map was made just this week, and my only complaint would be the vegetation mapping. A lot of it was just ROST or simply yellow. Some more work on this map would open up a lot more control location possibilities. 2.5m (8 foot) contours would be really nice here.

It was very warm and very humid, and most of us were soaked head-to-foot by the finish.

The course setter announced that finishers after 60 minutes would lose all their controls, which is a pretty harsh rule. I didn't get 4 of the 23 controls (I think). I thought I'd done pretty well coming in 48 seconds early, but Mike came in even closer to 60 than I did. hkleaf cleared the course in 43 minutes or so.

The biggest surprise for me was that I can do okay running on flat ground. I ran a good 80% of the course. Slow yeah, but I ran.

I wish I had more time to look at Control 17 (clue: cave). It looked like something out of a first-person shooter video game. A little creepy. (Not that I play video games much---I watch my nephew play them.)

Three trainings in a day for me. That doesn't happen too much.

Sprint - Splits

It's only about 3 weeks from the US ARDF (Radio Orienteering) Championships, and I need to do something drastic to get myself in a little better shape by then. With the car accident, I've had a pretty crazy summer. I finally was able to buy a used car Saturday a week ago, and that is a big load off my shoulders. Work is taking more time than normal. But I really need to just suck it up and run.

C • welcome back - or have I been ... 5

C • welcome back - or have I been ... 1

A short 5-transmitter ARDF at Rentschler Park near Hamilton, OH. Bob Frey was the setter, and he said that this was intended purely to get us used to 2m continuous carrier again. We've been using 2m keyed-carrier, which is the international standard, and harder. So this event was fairly easy by our standards.

I got screwed up "in the circle" by number 3 and took 3 or 4 cycles to get it. Had I had more radio-O events under my belt this summer, I think I would have had no trouble with it. The strategy side of my brain was working slowly.

A really fun course. It made good use of the honeysuckle (by placing T's to make it a little easier). I did swim in the thick honeysuckle a few times, but it was mostly trails and more open forest.

I just entered my last month's worth of logging (only a few hours of events, unfortunately/embarrassingly). The highlight is probably the Canadian Orienteering Championships, here. Be sure to read it in chronological order.

Event: Deadman's Crossing Upside-Down Rogaine
 

Event: Planet Adventure Urban Sprint
 

Event: 2007 USOF Convention and Colorado 5-Days