September 9 in North Umstead

I was asked on Facebook if I used a MT bike during this event. I did not! :)

It was just a very good run for me, maybe the best I ever had in Umstead. I ran all the way, didn't make serious mistakes (there was one where I lost 50 secs or so and another where I lost 10 secs), but everything else was clean and close to optimal.

It helped that there were no major hills and the forest was pretty much open. Ken and Terese designed and set very fast, relaxing course, which nevertheless required some precise orienteering. All of that helped me.

Here is my route:

#1: straight, had the parking lot on my right, continued in the same direction until reached the re-entrant with the control

#2: wasn't going to loose any elevation early, so kept on the slope until I saw the side re-entrant, crossed the big re-entrant there, used the trail for a little bit until I saw the earth bank, left the trail there, crossed the earth bank, went around the green patch and to the control  

#3: took compass bearing and went straight, hit the dry ditch and followed it north, but didn't see the control and passed it. Reached another dry-ditch, turned back and got the control (10 secs lost there)

#4: there was too much staff on the map before the control, so I decided not to micro-manage and went north thinking that I'll decide what to do later when I reach one of the major features on the other side of the road. Ended up reaching the trail north from the big re-entrant and decided to go around all the gullies using the trail. Did so - probably wasn't the best choice, though.

#5: was going to go west while staying on the hill and reach the powerline south from the control, but ended up on the wrong hill - north from the control... Naturally went north to the re-entrant looking for the control, but it wasn't there. Stopped and double-checked the map, realized that I could have made that mistake. Crossed the hill south and got the control. Lost about 50 secs there.

#6: went east, keeping the elevation. Then used the long gully and dry-dicth as a handrail to reach the stone wall - my attack point. From there went east and then north-east to the re-entrant with the control.

#7: north, around the green staff, then down the slope to the control using the re-entrant as a handrail.

#8: decided not to mess with vegetation by the creek and went up, proceed along the slope, used the field corner as an intermediate check point, proceeded further around the side re-entrant, noticed small gully, from there cut to the bigger gully and dry-ditch and used it as a handrail to the top. From there went north and then east to the re-entrant with the control.

#9: crossed the big re-entrant, went over the hill and then proceeded along the slope to the side re-entrant with the control

#10: decided not to go up and around and went straight across the big re-entrant, then across the top part of the next re-entrant and finally down alongside the re-entrant which went south. Used the open slope to go down, crossed the creek west from the earth wall, walked up, then south till I crossed the dry-ditch. From there saw the knoll and from there the pit.

#11: went south, crossed the trail and went around the mess with gullies. Didn't want to climb all the way up, so used top of the re-entrant instead of the stone wall as an intermediate point. From there went south, planning to hit the gully near the control and did so.

#12: took compass beating and ran down hill until I reached the road a bit west from the creek. Used the trail to cross the creek and then a bit more. Then attacked the control from the trail.

#13: east, crossed the road, then went around the first re-entrant. Then went down while continuing south-east. Crossed the creek at the bottom of the second re-entrant and proceeded along the creek on the flat surface until I saw the ground rising. The control was there.

#14: again avoided vegetation by the creek and went up, then ran south-west using the distant creek as a handrail of a sort. Crossed the other creek and continued in the same direction. Crossed the trail, then road and figured I was going to be on the left of the control. I was. I also got lucky and saw Tanya by the control, so I simply ran there at full speed.

#15: didn't go back down, but stayed on the hill and went straight toward the control. Crossed everything and kept going. Saw re-entrant on my right and then the opening in front of me. Took the control.

#finish: was rather tired and decided not to cross deep re-entrant before the finish, so went around using the trail.

Ended up with 1:05 on 7 km - very good time for me.

(click on the image to enlarge it)

Huge thanks to Ken and Terese for the great event!

April 22 at South Umstead

Yes, we'll be orienteering in Umstead this year as well!!! Hard to believe it, I know. I am really looking forward to it though.

Got the courses designed and approved by the park already. Just to give you a heads up, I decided to try something different from I've been doing before. The advanced courses will have lesser number of controls, but several really long legs with lots of route choices. For example,

• Red will have 12 controls and three (!!!) 1KM legs, 6.8KM
  
• Green - 10 controls, one 1KM leg, 5.1KM
  
• Brown - 9 controls, three 0.6KM legs, 4.1KM
  

If you can, try Red, it should be very interesting.

Another thing is that there will be a remote start for advanced courses, so people would be able to spend more time behind the river in the "juicy" part of the park.

Birkhead Map. Aftermath

And the meet is over. Feels weird. Empty. So much time and effort was put into it over the past 3 months, it's hard to accept that it's all over. Yes, we should meet and do some "lessons learned" thing. Even if just for the sake of a closure.

Meanwhile I did some reading on attackpoint.org. I almost wish I didn't - people tend to emphasize negative experiences, it was at times hard to bear. I know, most of the runners were quite happy about the event, but still...

Anyway, I was mostly interested in their comments about the map. After all, I did spent something around 50 hours refreshing various portions of the map - I guess it was my "highest profile" mapping job so far. Here is what I found (combined with what people said during the meet):

• In general the map was adequate, but not great
• Contours were fine and usable with one exception (group of re-entrants on a side of a huge hill on Blue was down about 2 contours on the map - the re-entrants should have been drawn higher up. Apparently wasn't such a big deal - no one lost significant time because of it)
• Our choice of representing rocks and rock formations was unusual. However, after people got accustomed to this style, they were able to take advantage of extra information conveyed by it. At least some people. There were two cases where we supposedly went against ISOM standard:
  • when using 202.0 Rock pillar/cliff symbol for medium size prolongated rocks - attempt to show an unusual shape of these rocks...
  • when mapping some of rocks under 1m as small boulders - it was indeed the case but only in the areas where no big boulders were around.
• Green was mostly OK, but not consistent in some areas. Especially in SW corner where we updated green on some areas and didn't have time to do it on adjacent areas.
• Amount and accuracy of various features on the map was OK.

How to take it? I don't know. From one side, it's hard to accept "not great" consensus after putting so much effort into it - feels like I didn't do a very good job out there. But at the same time I know that if I wouldn't done what I did, we'd have many more complaints and possibly courses thrown away. So it wasn't a waste. Plus we have a reasonably good map for our local meets now, where we could run without getting confused anymore.

I guess, positives should overweight and eventually they will,.. but not yet, not today.

Night-O at Bond Park (Feb 2012)

Night-O is among my favorite events and is probably the most anticipated one. We only do it once a year after all. So, yeah, I've been counting days :)

Also Mihai somehow always manages to add extra twist to the event, whether it is a flood or, in this case, bitter cold and wind. Seriously, it was the first and only really cold evening during the whole winter! After the finish, having crossed creeks a few times, I realized that my pants and shoes were covered in a thin layer of ice! Now, this hadn't happened to me before - even during winter orienteering back in Belarus.

I am not going into too much details about my route - you can see it below, but here are a few highlights:

1. I left the western part of the map for the end because I knew that I was bound to get wet there and I really really didn't want to run the whole course with wet feet in such cold weather. Also I wasn't particularly looking forward getting into thorns which were abundant on that side - and wanted to postpone it as much as I could.

2. I went for 46 right from the start, even though, I knew it was a good finishing control. Still it was on my way, so why not take it right away. I caught up with Brian on the very next control, so it was a right choice.

3. Despite not taking ideal routes from 57 to 58 and 58 to 62, I was able to keep up with Brian. We met at every control up until 56 where he went east and I continued north. I was at 17 mins mark there and figured that there was a high probability of taking all the controls, so naturally I was looking for a route which would include all of them.

4. And I got into trouble on the very next control! Couldn't find it from above, went down to the creek, met Tanya, figured the control got to be higher and more to the west and indeed it was there. Lost a minute or so there.

5. Next two controls also proved to be challenging. First I missed re-entrant with 55 and had to come back. Then I couldn't spot 61 on the hill. Kiwi helped me there! She ran to me and then back to Joseph who was at the control. I simply followed her :)

6. Met Tanya again at 42, then took the trail around the visitors center. Was running and thinking that I should have gone straight instead of going around (but looking at the map now, I could see that the trail was a good option).

7. Reached 44 at 33 min mark - plenty of time left, though, I rightly suspected that it'd be harder in the west part. It was.

8. Crossed the knee deep creek between 54 and 59, tried to climb steep bank on the other side, fell, eventually climbed the bank, ran to the control and realized that I lost the map! Oh, no! I thought it was all over and my map was flowing down the creek... Went back to the bank where I fell and to my great relief found the map - it was hanging on one of those thorny vines.

9. Crossed the creek again between 59 and 66 - being already wet I didn't care anymore :)

10. Couldn't find 68 for a while. It's a tough place without good attack points. I turned into the green a bit too early, but eventually found the control by walking east.

11. Crossed the creek between 65 and 52 and got seriously stuck on some thorny vines. Got scratched all over and managed to make a deep cut on my left thumb, so it started to drip blood to the flashlight handle and the map quite profusely.

12. I had 5 mins left at 51 - just enough to take the last control and finish on time!

All the controls in the bag and final time: 59.52 - couldn't have been better!



Huge thank you to Mihai for yet another great Night-O!

Preparing for Bubba Goat

Went out today and set half of the ribbons. What a beautiful day, the forest was absolutely gorgeous, sun was shiny and mushrooms all over!

The courses are not approved yet, but I am pretty sure that this set of controls won't be questioned by the park. Stumbled on a ribbon for coming 10/16 event and set a Bubba Goat ribbon alongside it. Ha! I guess I have an unfair advantage now :) But no worry - I still can't run and will be walking next Sunday... It's funny how I can walk 7-8 kms without problems, but can't run even 50 yards. Oh well... I hope it'll get resolved eventually.

Meanwhile, half of the ribbons are set. The other half will have to wait until the park approves the courses.

One last thing, I hope to see you all this Wednesday at Joseph's house (see here). If you would like to help the club or just interested in the way it operates, by all means COME!

What does it take to organize an Advanced event?

After talking to Roman last Sunday, I thought, it'd be good to put it all down on paper. What does it take to organize an Advanced event? How long does it take? What kind of time commitment is needed? What are the preparation steps and how difficult are they?

Surprisingly, it is not hard at all to put up such event - pretty much anyone who is comfortable with running advanced courses could do it! Time commitment is rather small, it's fun and a great training exercise. In fact, this is THE BEST way to quickly and drastically improve your map reading skills.

Sounds like a shameless advertisement already, but yes, if you are reading it, I want to ask you to seriously consider organizing one of those event in 2012! You won't regret it.

So what's involved?

Step 1 (designing the courses)
Time required: 2 hours (if you do it for the first time), ~30 mins if you've done it before
This might be challenging if you do it for the first time: you would need to download and install Condes (special software we use), download maps, spend some time getting familiar with the software and actually design the courses. It's much easier to do for an advanced event, though, because you'll be basically designing just one course - Red. Green and Brown will be subsets of Red. There are instructions on the BOK site on how to design the course, I won't go into details here. Remember though, that many people (me including) will be happy to review your design and suggest improvements. It can be done via email and the whole process should not take more than 2 hours of your time throughout several days. Of course this step can (and in case of Umstead should) be done 1-2 months before the event.

Step 2 (get the park approval)
Time required: 30 mins
Different parks have different requirements, but for the most parks a simple call or email would suffice. You'd need to talk to a person in charge there and see if they are OK with our date and whether they have a preference for a start location. In some cases, you'd need to reserve a shelter as well. Umstead has the toughest requirements - they actually want to review the courses, so you'd need to send them the courses in JPG format at least 1 month before the event for review and approval. You might have to go through a few iterations with them as well. BOK site has all the contact information and requirements for all the parks we use (Joseph or Mihai would need to provide you access to that page). If you feel uncomfortable with this step, I am sure, you could get help. I remember Joseph getting all the approvals for the first few events I did (thank you!).

Step 3 (announce the event on the BOK site)
Time required: 15 mins
You could do it yourself or ask someone else to put an announcement up, doesn't matter.

Step 4 (get equipment)
Time required: 1 hour
You would need to pick up all the equipment from the last event director or from Joseph's house. It's just a driving time.

Step 5 (set ribbons)
Time required: 3-5 hours
This is the most important part and a great training exercise for you. The idea is to find all the spots where controls should be, check and double-check them from several attack points, see if all the important features around the control are indeed on the map (if not, consider moving the control a bit), and, of course, hang an orange ribbon with "BOK - date" mark on it.
It is done 1 week before the event. I used to split it between Saturday and Sunday. Now I do it during one 3 hours hike. I don't run when setting ribbons. Basically it is a long thoughtful hike and you get a chance to enjoy the forest and explore the map in great details, like you never could during a normal run.

Step 6 (adjust and cleanup the courses/controls)
Time required: 15-45 mins
After all the ribbons are set, you usually would need to move a few controls on the map a bit. You would also need to play a bit more with Condes: clean up control circles, set numbers right and position the legend. Again, someone could help you with that kind of cleanup - in that case this step will not take more than 15 mins of your time.

Step 7 (print the maps)
Time required: 1 hour
This is done on Friday before the event.
If Joseph is in town, you can ask him to print the maps. Otherwise, use Fedex/Kinkos print online service. It's pretty easy and self explanatory. You would need to export map with courses into PDF file to do that (PrimoPDF freeware is used for that).
Then you would need to pick the printed maps up. So some driving time will be required here.

Step 8 (hang the controls)
Time required: 1.5-2 hours
One day before the event you would need to go and hang the controls (taking off the ribbons). This is an easy job, because you will already know the area intimately after setting ribbons. You can run if you wish - I prefer to walk and enjoy the forest. Some people prefer to hang the controls in the morning right before the event, but if you don't like rushing things up, just set them on Saturday.

Step 9 (download sign-up spreadsheet)
Time required: 5 mins
Every person who registeired for the event will appear in the "registration" spreadsheet on the BOK site (Mihai or Joseph can give you access to it). Ideally, everybody should register before noon on Friday, so you would know how many maps to print. In reality there are always a few people who register late, so it's better to print the spreadsheet at the last possible moment. You will use this spreadsheet during the event for marking start/finish times - much easier comparing to regular events.

Step 10 (run the event)
Time required: 5 hours
Come 30 mins early, set parking signs, set the start place. During the advanced event you won't have to deal with registration or money, as everybody is pre-registered and everything is paid for already (members go free), so it's all very easy and relaxing.

Step 11 (post the results)
This is pretty challenging from technical stand point. Someone will have to show you how to do it, so for the first time I would suggest that you ask someone else to do this step.

So in total you'd be looking at something like 16 hours of various activities, with 11 of those being "preparation" time spread over 1-2 month before the event.

Think about it :)

Aug 21 Results

Posted the results: http://backwoodsok.org/advanced-event-at-schenck-forest-aug-21-results