This Year's Hyland Park Sprint

Posted Sun, March 29, 2009 - 9:40 PM
orienteering, navigation

Saturday was the latest installment of the MNOC Orienteering Clinic that we've held together with Three Rivers Parks for the last eight years. As usual, I ran the advanced skills station over at Jan's Place with help from Tom and Justin. I also set up a sprint course to kickstart our contribution to the Sprint Series (and allow some of our club members a chance to compete).

Map and course setter's thoughts below the fold.

Last year I also designed a sprint course at Hyland, and ran it through the busy open areas around the visitor center, south and west of the start at Jans' place. So my original thought was make this year's sprint go the opposite direction, and try to use at least some of the wooded or open rough areas north and east of the start. A couple weeks beforehand I put together an "armchair" course that used a fair amount of the white open forest available on the map. I tweaked the controls until I was pretty happy with the look and the length. But then, I went to field check it.

Sucked. Most of the white areas were filling in with buckthorn, so the legs wouldn't be very much fun and there would have been a lot of luck factor because of the (unmapped) open corridors and deer trails. One area in particular just seemed like a latrine for the local deer population. There was also a lot of leftover ice and standing meltwater (COLD!) although I wasn't as worried about that with another two weeks to finish the snowmelt. Not wanting to spend a lot of time with some combination of remapping and course tweaking for marginal benefit, I decided to go back to the area I knew was good, but thought about how to add a little more interest.

After a couple more armchair sessions, I settled on two things: 1. Lots of controls. 2. Make more of the controls blind (i.e., opposite side of the feature so they're not visible until you're on top of them), and 3. Add a sequence of really short legs. As you can see from map, 2-3-4 served that third purpose. So my idea of the race experience I was trying to design was like this:

• Start-1: Immediate choice, over the hill or around? A completely blind control on the bottom west side of a deck with parallel fences.
• 1-2: A choice to go high to the north or low on the trail to the south. The control was blind from the high route, hidden behind a set of stairs up to a plaza just south of the visitor center. The control was visible from the west end of the low trail, but required an uphill run to get there.
• 2-3: A very short leg to the control tucked against the south side of the square building.
• 3-4: An even shorter leg to a 1.2 m boulder on the south end of the beach. The control was completely hidden from all previous points on the course, on the south side of the boulder.
• 4-5: A simple leg, with a choice of "around or through". Not really blind since no leaves are out yet.
• 5-6: This was a setup leg, not much challenge and not really blind.
• 6-7: Run low by the lake, not very challenging but blind behind a 1.5 meter knoll.
• 7-8: A couple of options on how to get to the main trail - after that, just an open field run. The control was harder to see ahead the further north you were.
• 8-9: A small hilltop well delineated by trails, but in a dense cluster of pine trees.
• 9-10: I can think of at least three viable routes here, all of which were taken by some competitor. It was also the biggest hill climb on the course, placed a little after the halfway point.
• 10-11: A short leg with a choice of woods or trail. The control was blind behind some downed brush at the edge of the wood.
• 11-12: A tight change in direction and back uphill.
• 12-13: I figured this would be a fast leg with an open downhill run and a chance to spot the control from a ways away.
• 13-14: Down into the creek valley in full woods. There were some deadfall on the downslope, and I was hoping for some water in the creek, but it had all dried up by race day.
• 14-15: A side-slope through the woods to a distinctive boulder. The control was blind behind the boulder and a large tree next to it.
• 15-Finish: A short leg, but with a creek crossing, and the slope up had gotten a little bit muddy.

I'm happy to report that the course worked out just as planned. Several people overran the 3-4 leg and everyone commented on the challenge of the visual distractions, and not being able to pick out the control ahead of time on most legs. From one Attackpoint log:

Across the entire field, splits for 3-4 ranged between 8 and 71 seconds. I didn't expect it to have that much effect, really!