Discussion: Thank you Ottawa!

Great weekend of races. Really fun (and challenging) racing at Carp Ridge. Today's elite sprints and relay were super fun to watch! Congratulations to all those who contributed to a great weekend!

Yes an absolutely wonderful weekend. Wonderfully challenging terrain and courses and great spectating opportunities. Today's relay was especially excellent to watch highlighting North America's best. Already looking forward to Ottawa O Fest next September! Thanks Ottawa OC and Arnprior.

Totally agree. And I had several opportunities to work with Ann Teutsch, meet director, concerning the BK and FC cups, and she is very much a first-class individual. A real pro.

And great hospitality and events for new orienteers. I had family come to see what this sport is all about, and they walked away asking when we're going to do this again. Thanks for creating such a positive experience for all!

These comments are very much appreciated. I concur with the accolades for Anne Teutsch. I first came across her as a high school track and field star and second years later but still in her pre-children era as the director of the finest, smoothest running triathlon I have ever experienced. So I want to take a little credit for urging the Ottawa OC to target Anne for event leadership. She is SO great to work with and no detail escapes her attention.

Secondly folks Could you do us a favour (favor)? I would like to collect a book of thank yous for two special groups.
First the Town of Arnprior. I don't think any of us have ever experienced a town so willing not only to host the event but to put so much resources in to making the event work - from donating the use of facilities, vehicles, labour and vehicles to a sizeable monetarty donation to helping smooth the way for us to get much needed property owner permissions needed for the Sprint.
Second the group of landowners who allowed us the use of their land for the Middle and Long events, particularly David Mateson and Janet Strome who hosted the arena and parking on their land and David who 'bush hogged' many of the trails from indistinct to distinct.
If you have particularly fond memories or thanks you would like to share with the town or David and Janet could you e-mail them to me and I will make sure the comments are collected and forwarded to them.
My e-mail for this is gordhun -at - rogers. com Put something like Thanks to ... in the subject line.
I will thank you in advance for thanking them. Please be sure to mention from where you are writing.

As someone who was both a competitor and an organizer I want to say thank you to the great team that put together fantastic orienteering but also to everyone that believed in our ability to put on this event and came out and made it such a success.

I was involved in many of the 'extra' aspects of NAOC2014 and it was very rewarding to see everyone participating in the Opening Ceremonies, dinners, awards ceremonies, After Hours, etc. The atmosphere in the hockey rink during the Opening Ceremonies was phenomenal and I don't think I've ever seen so many people attend medal ceremonies as we had this weekend. I would also like to extend a thank you to those volunteers from outside of Orienteering Ottawa who stepped in various ways but particularly Meghan Rance, Nevin French, and Giacomo Barbone who did an absolutely amazing job announcing the event.

From a competitor's standpoint I want to say just how good those courses were. I didn't run the long but all the courses I did run we're super fun, challenging, and made great use of the terrain. The Carp ridge is always fantastic but the sprint in Arnprior really blew me away. I definitely wasn't expecting a course that felt that much like a real urban sprint like what you seem to get so often in Europe. The use of the small downtown section and it's uncrossable fences to create tricky route choices and traps was a very nice surprise.

Beatrice and I had a fantastic time. Many thanks to the wonderful childcare workers and volunteers! Oh, and that (first half of the) Long, certainly the most technical Long course in North America since, well, not even sure when. NAOC 2010? And not running out of that yummy banquet food, that's a feat.

Throwing an old-grumpy thing here, tail-loading the program with arguably the most important event (for the Federations competition and for spectators) well on the afternoon of the last day surely doesn't make it easy for travel. Especially for those of us on the West Coast. And if the next event in two years is out West, a last-day-afternoon event will be exceedingly difficult for those back East to attend/spectate and not miss most of their next day's work or school. Do I have an alternate proposal? Perhaps move the Middle to the last day.

Or afternoon Middle, (next day) Sprint + Relay, (next day early morning) Long. The way things keep going, USA may not need that last day for the BK :)

Thanks Ottawa! Love those Carp woods--technical and fun.
Let's follow Gord's lead and send in those thank-you notes.

Great weekend. Thanks to Ottawa Orienteering and the town of Arnprior for putting on such a high caliber event!

Thanks Orienteering Ottawa and Arnprior, it was a great weekend. Nicely done!

I love the terrain! Thanks for really nice courses and a great race atmosphere! Lots of fun!

What a class act! Thanks for all the effort you put into a terrific event - excellent pre-race info, challenging O courses, incredible host town support, live music, well-designed race arenas, exciting opening ceremony and much more.

Absolutely gorgeous long weekend filled with world class terrain, challenging courses, festivity, and colors! Especial thanks to all organizers and Arnprior community!

Live Music
Oh yes - in all the other wonderfulness of the weekend it is worth a tip of the hat to the live bands. Probably not to everyone's taste, but the Orienteers are a pretty easy to listen to band. And as for the jazz ensemble, well I just don't think you could do much better by me.

(One of the most amazing things to me last weekend was that "The Orienteers" is not a band made up of local orienteers, but is in fact a "real" band with no orienteers in it who have been around for years and just happen to have an appropriate name and who happened to be willing to compose the theme song and play a gig at the opening ceremonies)

I thoroughly enjoyed the meet...nice to just have to run and not worry about anything. Anne and the entire Ottawa Club put on an awesome event!

The meet organization was great, the landowners accommodating, the town of Arnprior was awesome and very welcoming, and even the selection of food vendors was inspired. Mongolian dumplings! Who would have thought they would hit the spot?

The momos saved me all three days. (And I believe they're tibetan, not mongolian.) And their mango lassi was more than excellent. Glad I could point a few non-locals to the Lunch truck at Hidden valley and the yummy locally-brewed bottles of root beer, cream soda and ginger beer.

Running in (near) empty streets was definitely a major fun for the sprint!

We had a great weekend orienteering in Canada. The town of Arnprior was friendly and welcoming. It was amazing to see how much was open to us coming in for the weekend. Great facilities, wonderful help with traffic control during the sprint. Loved the urban race setting.
Thanks also to the private property owners who welcomed hundreds of guests and allowed us to run all over. There were some very picturesque and majestic places that I would have spent more time at if I were not on the clock :)

Wonderful, thank you!

Yes, Himalayan dumplings. I was not thinking clearly.

Just wanted to add my thanks and kudos for the weekend. As someone who decided at the very last minute to attend, I'm so glad I made the right decision! The terrain at Carp was unbelievable! The atmosphere was great, and the sprint relay was incredibly exciting! Perfect weekend.

The NAOCs just keep getting better. Thanks everyone.

Thanks so much to the Ottawa OC. The nuts and bolts of the NAOCs - the championship races were great. You guys went so far beyond the nut and bolts of NAOCs. The extras were numerous and impressive - as others have mentioned already in this thread - the live music, the meals, the relationship with the local community, the opening ceremonies, the great arena atmosphere, the himalyan dumplings :-), the great announcing, lots of local media, the spectator guide, etc... oh and the fabulous fall colours!

Thanks Ottawa OC! Amazingly fun weekend, good courses, lots of fancy arena extras, perfect weather! I think my favourite extra was the live results available on our phones in the arena. Thanks again and I hope you're enjoying some well deserved rest now!

Wonderful weekend! Thanks for everything - even the weather cooperated :)

Good times and great orienteering in super challenging terrain! Thanks, Ottawa OC and Arnprior - so worth the trip up from Boston!

Can I request one more thing? Can the splits be loaded into WinSplits? I'm happy to do it myself, if someone will send me the data files.