Training Log Archive: Swampfox

Finished off mapping another 1/4 km2 block at Remarkable Flats, and then headed over to Diamond Bay next door to run an O' course with the cows. I was doing better navigation than the cows, but they had more legs. Plus it must be a little bit unfair to force them to run through their food (all the grass and such); to make it more fair there should have been some pizzas set out in the grass, but Diamond Bay is outside of Domino's delivery area.

3 people were firing pistols (illegally) behind the concrete bunker, but they were the only folks I saw all day long.

Came home and saw that the secret talks between Burger King and Tim Hortons were finally no longer so secret. According to one document I have been showed privately, one of the possible things the two parties have been discussing would be the total conversion of Tim Hortons stores to Burger King stores. The thinking is Satisfries didn't work in the US, so surely they will sell well in Canada??? Orienteering in Canada will never be the same.

Had set out to explore several nearby kimberlites I've known about for a while, with the intent of gathering some mineral specimens, but I never could find a way to access the area from the direction of approach I had chosen--posted private lands formed an unbreachable wall. I'll have to rethink that one. Ended up running at Plutonic instead, and gathered to bags full of cans for recycling, just enough I reckon for one of those new F-150s coming out. (Just enough for one of the very miniature toy versions, at least.)

C • posted private land 4

Much snow fence repair ongoing up top; hard to believe snow could be flying in as little as 3 weeks!!

Did some mapping at Remarkable Flats, mainly to add some additional area with rocks, because one thing for sure the map needs is more area with rock detail.

Signs of fall are unmistakable: gentians in full bloom, willows beginning to yellow and some aspens as well, and of course around town joggers are now mostly seen with gloves, knit caps, and down winter parkas.

Add in one cow moose seen while running at Happy Jack.

O' running at Pelican Bay--always a great choice! But it's even better when Pelican Bay (the actual water feature) is brimming full, as it still is. Many summers it has been bone dry, but not this year. I got started at about 6:30, which was a little late for the course I was running, and I was struggling a little bit to read the map for the last several controls. Time to move up the start times for any O' runs to no later than 5:30 or so--which will be good for another few weeks or so. While I was warming down, I was thinking a little about the recently concluded WRC. From running in the event those organizers put on in the Black Hills 2 years ago, it was obvious they didn't have the requisite skills in terms of map-making and technical aspects of control locating and placement. Still, one could hope that in the ensuing 2 years they would either improve their technical prowess and/or import the necessary know-how to pull off the WRC. I suppose the powers that be in the IRF will be the ones to judge whether or not it was enough to hope (versus demanding solid demonstration of competency) and whether or not the recent event answered those hopes.

And then, just for fun, I started thinking about the feasibility of a rogaine in Laramie. Many people have asked about that over the years. There would be some natural advantages. For one, the existing USGS maps covering the national forest east of town are essentially rogaine perfect as is--contours, vegetation, road net. But I would probably go ahead and improve the maps by adding in the single track net that is out there. For someone who knows what they were doing, that would be a fairly trivial task, easily accomplished over a weekend of work. Maybe the maps are even "too good" in a way that would dumb down the navigation; all the roads are numbered and signed in the terrain and on the maps, so there is a limit as to how lost a team could get. And the entire area itself is bounded by a border fence.

For another, it's a very user friendly area. No thorns and no poison ivy. I guess many rogainers don't care about such things, but speaking purely personally, I never saw the appeal of trudging endless hours through vegetational hell--especially at night where it can be all but impossible to see where the difficulties will start and end.

Then, too, we could offer an event with near perfect control placement. You either know what you're doing when you're setting controls or you don't. And if you know what you're doing, you're either sure that a control location is right or you're not sure. If you're not sure, you pick another location until you are sure.

And you don't hang controls so they're flattened up against trees, or hidden inside bushes. I mean, c'mon--ha!

Still, I know some rogainers really relish the misery, and I suppose if there were sufficient demand for it, we could be induced to try to find a few really bad places in the forest to hang a couple of control for that part of the rogaining crowd to experience some unanticipated amounts of misfortune and unhappiness.

So that kind of stuff could be handled readily enough.

But, man, the financial risks appear to be daunting. The expert consensus seems to be that you need to charge a minimum of about $250/person to put on a quality event. That seems a little high to me, but then I know I don't know, so it would seem foolish to ignore what these folks are saying. Just doing the math using the attendance up at the WRC of circa 400 people, then you're talking 100K. If that's really what it takes, and only 200 people showed up, then, whew--you'd be $50K in the hole. That's a lot of downside. (I sure hope the folks at Peak Assurance had some outside financial support, because they couldn't have taken in much more than $52K -$53K in entry fees.)

And then there is the requirement for electronic punching that the powers-that-be in rogaining have mandated for use at WRCs. Ugh. What a huge amount of extra work. I suppose you could outsource all of the work of implimenting that--setting the units out in the field at the controls, outfitting the competitors with their wrist-locked finger sticks, finish timing and results, etc.) and simply up the entry fee to by another $25 or $50 or whatever it would take, and that way not have to hassle with it yourself. Maybe this won't be mandated in the future though? My understanding was that a principle reason for implementing epunching was to limit cheating possibilities by teams. In that respect, the decision to not require actual results at a WRC appears is particularly brilliant, since having no official results would seem to be the single best way to provide a incontrovertible disincentive to cheat.

It was fun to think about, but in practice it would be a huge undertaking--and once you say you're going to do it, you're pretty much stuck on doing it, like it or not--and really one much better suited for someone with superior organizational skills and an undying passion for rogaining--neither of which apply to me.

C • Proposal 15

O' training at Remarkable Flats. I drew up a course that stayed entirely in the east pasture, since that's where all the cattle are presently. Somehow it's more fun to try to keep the running pace high when there are cows around, though I have no idea why. Maybe that's what happens you become an O' cowboy?

Didn't see a soul from start to finish, nor another vehicle of any sort. Quite different than what the racers at the Rocky Mountain Goat must have experienced.

After reviewing the results from the recent WRC, it seems that old fashioned pin punching is looking better and better all the time.

C • punching 5