Training Log Archive: mikeminiumIn the 1 days ending Dec 17, 2011:
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Saturday Dec 17, 2011 #
Event: MVOC - Night Score O
walking 15:00 [1]
Putting out Trail-O controls for course setting clinic. Photographing participants during Trail-O and Control Site Evaluation activities.
orienteering race 55:00 [4] ***
20c
Night Score Orienteering at Cricket Holler.
Matt Bond and I were the only ones to get all 20 controls. He beat me by several minutes (of course he had home field advantage and he had visited all controls by daylight helping Benjamin set them out.) Benjamin designed the course, and it was fun.
This was an interesting night. Have you heard the saying that if you set something free, it will come back to you? Well, I did not intend to release my Moscow thumb compass into the wild, but somewhere between the first and second control, the band came loose and it found its freedom. Leaving my second control (#3), I noticed its absence, but decided against turning back. Desperately checking pockets, I lost the faint trail toward my 3rd control (#4) and decided on timber-bashing instead. Without the compass, my aiming off was WAY off, and I probably spent an extra minute flailing through thick vegetation, before bouncing off a fence and using that as a handrail.
Leaving this control was little better - I should have backtracked to the faint path along the fence, but going 180 degrees away from my next control (and back through the pack of JROTC cadets that had latched onto my tail) just seemed WRONG. The result was that I led some intrepid cadets through some of the thickest, nastiest, thorniest vegetation at Cricket Holler. At one point, branches swept off my headlight, and as I reached for it, the strap of my handheld light caught on another branch and I was temporarily stuck. I finally managed to free myself and get everything fixed back up, but it cost a minute. Amazingly, the cadets were faring no better and were still behind me, grunting with exertion and thorny punctures.
Bashed through a little more brush, I hit a trail a few steps before the cadets, and quickly picked up speed and ditched them. Only to catch up with others. One of them outsprinted me to a control but slid past it and I got the punch first. Ha!
A couple controls later on, I caught up to the Klipstine clan (Adam, Chance, a teenage friend and their dad Todd). Todd made some comment about how they ought to follow me. But leaving the control, they managed to outdistance me through the woods as my light snagged again and glasses fogged while I fixed it. Grrr. But, I made a better route choice and we arrived at the next control simultaneously.
As we punched, Todd made another remark about following, and I replied with a lament about losing my compass. He said "we have 2, would you like to borrow one?" "Sure, thanks." One look, and the lensatic non-liquid filled sighting compass went in my pocket, not to emerge again for the duration of the race. But at least I knew I had it if I really needed it.
From there on, I did not make any real mistakes, but there were JROTC kids everywhere, being a constant distraction. Ahead of me something crashed off the trail into dense third green bushes. A deer? Nope, 2 kids in head-to-toe cammies crouched in the bushes hiding from me. Dudes, what is the point? I sprint past. A couple controls later, after punching a control, I realize that I am being chased by a red laser dot, bouncing around at my feet. I'm sure its a toy and not a gun, but I am still happy that I can see it dancing around the forest floor, since as long as I can see it, it hasn't found me as a target. Kids!
Anyway, finishing the course and turning in my punch card, there was my faithful compass right in the middle of the results table. It actually had beat me back to the finish! Thanks to whoever found it and turned it in! I returned the museum artifact to the Klipstines, put my thumb back on, and had not quite enough time to focus myself for the start of Search and Destroy...
Matt Bond and I were the only ones to get all 20 controls. He beat me by several minutes (of course he had home field advantage and he had visited all controls by daylight helping Benjamin set them out.) Benjamin designed the course, and it was fun.
This was an interesting night. Have you heard the saying that if you set something free, it will come back to you? Well, I did not intend to release my Moscow thumb compass into the wild, but somewhere between the first and second control, the band came loose and it found its freedom. Leaving my second control (#3), I noticed its absence, but decided against turning back. Desperately checking pockets, I lost the faint trail toward my 3rd control (#4) and decided on timber-bashing instead. Without the compass, my aiming off was WAY off, and I probably spent an extra minute flailing through thick vegetation, before bouncing off a fence and using that as a handrail.
Leaving this control was little better - I should have backtracked to the faint path along the fence, but going 180 degrees away from my next control (and back through the pack of JROTC cadets that had latched onto my tail) just seemed WRONG. The result was that I led some intrepid cadets through some of the thickest, nastiest, thorniest vegetation at Cricket Holler. At one point, branches swept off my headlight, and as I reached for it, the strap of my handheld light caught on another branch and I was temporarily stuck. I finally managed to free myself and get everything fixed back up, but it cost a minute. Amazingly, the cadets were faring no better and were still behind me, grunting with exertion and thorny punctures.
Bashed through a little more brush, I hit a trail a few steps before the cadets, and quickly picked up speed and ditched them. Only to catch up with others. One of them outsprinted me to a control but slid past it and I got the punch first. Ha!
A couple controls later on, I caught up to the Klipstine clan (Adam, Chance, a teenage friend and their dad Todd). Todd made some comment about how they ought to follow me. But leaving the control, they managed to outdistance me through the woods as my light snagged again and glasses fogged while I fixed it. Grrr. But, I made a better route choice and we arrived at the next control simultaneously.
As we punched, Todd made another remark about following, and I replied with a lament about losing my compass. He said "we have 2, would you like to borrow one?" "Sure, thanks." One look, and the lensatic non-liquid filled sighting compass went in my pocket, not to emerge again for the duration of the race. But at least I knew I had it if I really needed it.
From there on, I did not make any real mistakes, but there were JROTC kids everywhere, being a constant distraction. Ahead of me something crashed off the trail into dense third green bushes. A deer? Nope, 2 kids in head-to-toe cammies crouched in the bushes hiding from me. Dudes, what is the point? I sprint past. A couple controls later, after punching a control, I realize that I am being chased by a red laser dot, bouncing around at my feet. I'm sure its a toy and not a gun, but I am still happy that I can see it dancing around the forest floor, since as long as I can see it, it hasn't found me as a target. Kids!
Anyway, finishing the course and turning in my punch card, there was my faithful compass right in the middle of the results table. It actually had beat me back to the finish! Thanks to whoever found it and turned it in! I returned the museum artifact to the Klipstines, put my thumb back on, and had not quite enough time to focus myself for the start of Search and Destroy...
orienteering race 20:00 [4] ***
9c
MVOC Night Search-and-Destroy O'. I think I had a decent plan, but made a mistaken turn going to the first one and the Klipstine clan sprinted past before I corrected. Knowing they would beat me to my first one, I tried a shortcut to the next, but the indistinct path was tough to follow, had a few fallen trees, and a torn-up footbridge, and when I got to the control, a kid was already grabbing it (Adam Klipstine, I think.). I tired the same trick again, a different route but heard people to my left who would probably reach it sooner. Darn, this is the worst luck I have ever had at Search and Destroy. Kicked in and headed farther out, finally finding an intact control, then another, and finally a third. The third one was tied to a chainlink fence and when I tried to untie it, a knot in the cord caught. It must have taken me two minutes to get the explitive thing untied.
The next two controls I visited were gone, and I raced Klipstines (again!) to a third, which also had already vanished. Since Adam can run a 5 km at about a minute a click faster than I can, that is a losing proposition as long as he knows where he's going. Giving up on that corner of the map, I headed back, checking out one more control site on the way, but it too was gone. Given the number of participants, I figured there was no sense heading for other parts of the map, which proved correct. Anyway, Klipstines returned with 3 controls and I also had 3. But they only had punched 16 in the original one-hour score-O. So it was down to me and my nemesis, Bond. Matt, it turned out, had even more trouble than me, and only got 2 controls, so I ended up winning the event total, 23 to 22. Close one Mr. Bond. We will surely meet again.
The next two controls I visited were gone, and I raced Klipstines (again!) to a third, which also had already vanished. Since Adam can run a 5 km at about a minute a click faster than I can, that is a losing proposition as long as he knows where he's going. Giving up on that corner of the map, I headed back, checking out one more control site on the way, but it too was gone. Given the number of participants, I figured there was no sense heading for other parts of the map, which proved correct. Anyway, Klipstines returned with 3 controls and I also had 3. But they only had punched 16 in the original one-hour score-O. So it was down to me and my nemesis, Bond. Matt, it turned out, had even more trouble than me, and only got 2 controls, so I ended up winning the event total, 23 to 22. Close one Mr. Bond. We will surely meet again.