Training Log Archive: David_Waller

Event: OCIN - Twi-night 2- and 4-hour Score-O
 

Event: Whitetail Trail Run Half Marathon
 

Getting all but three of the last controls out at HW, a couple of water drops, plus the stealth cams.

I was pretty pleased with how the Night-O went. Yeah, the course was not really clearable in 4 hours -- but I warned people that it was long! I figured that much more en route strategy is required when the course isn't clearable.

I was glad to see that good orienteers took off in all directions, and each of the viable race strategies (no north [Mike], go south [Tom], go east [Stephanie]) were represented by some of our region's best orienteers.

C • Score O Design... 8

Setting most of the controls for Saturday's event. Things are looking pretty good

Slow run out at HW, felt pretty crappy

BOK advanced meet at Umstead West. After a God-aweful first three controls, I managed to pull things together and have a fairly decent run. But the horrendous mistakes at the beginning are very hard to forget. In sum, they lost me at least 25 minutes. The highlight of these mistakes included punching #3 but thinking that I was punching #2, running off the map afterward and then having to retrace my steps back to #2 to verify that it was the wrong control. Exceptionally aweful compass work there.

I have not yet come to enjoy the standard BOK method of course-setting, which tends to involve hiding bags flush against the ground at the control site. Twice today I was within 5 meters of the bag, thinking "WTF, I'm pretty sure that I'm at the right spot. . .WTF. . .where else could I be?. . WTF...hmmm. . .I guess maybe I'll head over this way. . .oh. . .there is the control, right next to where I was just standing." I don't think that putting the bags on the ground is helpful -- just an annoying time-waste.

Unbeknowst to competitors today, our coursetter put one dummy decoy control (with a bogus SI unit) in an adjacent reetrant to the proper control (which was in a gully). The proper control location was quite technical, too -- and it was very easy to make a parallel error there. The bogus control fooled quite a few very good orienteers who ended up mp'ing their course. To me, it didn't seem necessary -- especially because we were not warned about the possibility of decoy controls beforehand. Even then, there was no need to put an SI unit on it -- it would have been fine to inform people when they tried to 'punch' that they were not in the right place.

I will approach BOK soon with an offer to set some courses for a local event here. Perhaps I can show them what courses set under Midwestern values are like.

C • The cycle continues 3

Easy jog over to Reedy Creek trailhead to meet Noga and Raven. Checked the controversial 'proper' and 'bogus' controls on the way, because there was some question about whether the 'proper' control was even placed correctly. After a period of thinking that the control had been misplaced, I ended up deciding that it was actually correct. But the gully for the control was very shallow and probably should not have even been mapped.