Training Log Archive: GlenT

A stroll around New Holland with Janet. Warm and muggy but with a breeze.

Event: DVOA Hickory Run State Park
 

Red course at DVOA local event at Hickory Run SP using the original 1:15000 offset printed map. Map was made in 1988 (!) but is still very good - mapped by Pat Dunlavey, Mark Dominie and Eric Weyman - a classic. Vegetation has thickened a bit with lots of smaller trees having grown up over the years. Courses used the westernmost part of the map which consists primarily of broad, flat hills bisected by Black Run and Fourth Run streams.

Orienteering was slow and quite physical due to summer vegetation with ferns obscuring the footing and lots of rock underfoot. The blandness of the terrain and reduced visibility meant a lot of reliance on the compass. I did fairly well with the compass work and was able to pick up terrain subtleties near the controls to find them (also followed a few "hunches" which turned out to be correct). Only real misses were getting off line on one control and checking 3 or 4 incorrect boulders before finding the correct one at another. Plus lots of hesitations. A fun course by Rob Wilkison. Straight line distance 6.75 km.

A warm, muggy day. Some distant thunder and then some light rain as we finished up.

Red - Splits

Event: EMPO - Washington Park
 

Warm up jogging to and from car and restroom.

Park-O at Washington Park in Albany. Mostly open land (mowed grass) with many mature trees, a few statues and fountains, some playground equipment, a long narrow lake (with a bridge near the middle), and an amphitheater (where they were prepping for a production of Spamalot). Some contour detail, particularly near the lake. Phil H-T recently remapped the area so the map is vastly improved over the 1988 version.

Frank Boscoe and Brenan Tarrier made good use of the entire park and got a 4km course on a ~0.5 km^2 map. Since this is a very urban park, they used small pin flags to mark control locations (with a letter at each location which we noted on our punch cards).

An OK run with one significant error when I went to a control on an adjacent spur rather than the correct one. Also lost some time (15 sec) waiting for traffic to cross a street (3 cars, 4 Harleys). Took one longer route choice when I noticed a group posing for pictures on the bridge I wanted to cross and ended up going around the lake. Probably could've been 1.5 - 2 min faster. Mostly cloudy and muggy.

HRM needed a new battery (now fixed).

C • 1

C • Time? 3

At Constitution Hill in Lanesboro MA, a BNRC property where we did a snowshoe race this past Winter. There was less snow but more mosquitoes and mud. Trails are mostly jeep road/ATV width (without too much ATV damage). A couple of muddy spots, lots of soft spots due to plenty of rain recently. I ran most of the interesting parts of the snowshoe race (i.e. not the part in the field, which is currently thigh-high grass), plus a couple of additional out-and-backs. Quite muggy.

Didn't push, didn't get hurt.

Stroll with Janet into "town" after dinner.