Strange Outfits at Wirth Park

Posted Wed, April 29, 2009 - 8:52 PM
orienteering, navigation

(No, it's not what you might think.) Last night Jerritt invited the whole group out to Wirth around 6 PM for an... audition, of sorts. He and a friend were making a short promotional video to be shared between True North Adventures and the Minneapolis Tri-loppet, and he was looking for volunteers to run, bike and paddle in "corporate" wear. So of course, those of us interested in hamming it up all showed up after work without changing clothes. I even put on a tie. Both Mollys were there in power suit attire, and Tom showed up everybody by arriving in a dark pinstripe suit with an orange tie and sunglasses.

We did all three disciplines, including a paddle on Wirth Lake in Jerritt's old aluminum canoe. We ended up taking almost an hour to record the video; the videographer didn't seem to have a real solid plan of what to do for each segment, so we ended up putting together scenarios and executing them two or more times, which was quite a bit of fun as we had to remember things, like what order we were in running over the crest of a hill.

The video will be a couple minutes long, and I'll post a link when I know it.

After that, we changed into real workout gear and ran the actual course. More after the jump.

April 28, 2009 TNT at Wirth Park. Click to enlarge.

This course seemed like it was inspired a bit by an earlier event at Wirth in the late winter, with clusters of controls in various quadrants of the park, together with the Tamarack Scrabble "plus" course that Ian set. We had to visit 15 controls but perform an extra task, usually exercises of some sort, at about 2/3 of them. Things like 20 pushups, 25 situps, 10 burpies, 25 jumping jacks, a couple of short sprints (which I dogged!) It was designed not to let your heart rate go down at the controls. I ran the thing at full effort, and since I had lent Ellen my watch, Biz was kind enough to let me borrow not only his Forerunner, but his HRM strap (he was planning to wash it anyway.) So I was wired! Since I ran at max pace, my HR immediately went into the 180s and stayed there, only dropping into the 160s in the sections that I had to trot while reading the map. I maxed out around 192 on some of the hills - the rates are relatively high, but very typical for me. I just have a fast heart.

I screwed up and stopped recording splits at #11, at 24:16 and finished the course in approximately 43 minutes.

1 - Around the south and west sides of the lake along the trails. Going east around the lake and running along the shoulder of 55 would have been an option, and maybe slightly faster, but not by much. Had to do 25 jumping jacks here.

2 - I saw JJ coming into 1 after the jumping jacks, so bolted down the trail and cut SW across the open area to #2. Nothing here.

3 - Quick run here after finding an animal trail, and had to do 10 burpies. As I was leaving, I saw JJ coming in, then cussing because he intended to go to 2 instead.

4 - Bad route here, I was too far south out of 3 and had to follow along the edge of the marsh out to the road. Then a long road run, cut the corner at the road intersection and slowed to a fast walk uphill past the start area of our winter event near #5. Jogged over to 4.

5 - Close by. It was supposed to be an all-out sprint to 5, then the same back to 4. Well, it was a "sprint".

6 - Passed and touched #4 again, then ran down the trail to the reentrant and over the brow of the hill to #6. Hit the reentrant too high, but at least the trail run was fast.

7 - Clumsy leg. Got messed up on the trails (as always) and didn't go so far as to run the wrong direction, but still executed poorly. Ran down into the depression too far north and had to take a sharp right turn when I spotted the tape, then bash through some closely packing pines to the road.

8 - Up the hill to the Eloise Butler parking lot and down the trail. This is where I maxed out my HR, but did well attacking the hill with a shorter stride and normal cadence.

9 - A short buckthorn thrash to the tape at the bottom of the big hill on the ski trail.

10 - Had to do two hill repeats to 10-9-10, then back down past 9 to the south.

11 - I still had plenty of legs for the paved trail run, but had to slow to a fast walk up the hill to the open area. The route around to the east avoided the climb, but I knew it wasn't really an open trail anymore. A quick run down the (now grass) trail to #11, where I saw Tom. He was doing them out of order to save time, as there wasn't much sunlight left at this point.

12 - A fun run. Tom beat me there and we both scared a photographer who was walking around on the saddle to the SE. I caught up in time to see Tom doing 10 tuck jumps, and we left about the same time, but in different directions.

13 - A questionable leg - I pretty much followed the meandering of the trails due north, and finally past the east side of the picnic area building - but it might have been faster to go west around Eloise Butler. Tom went east and then north, low and parallel to the east edge of the park, but I didn't see him after this. 20 pushups at the edge of the lake.

14 - A fast run to the building due to the open grass. I angled too far to the north and had to curve right.

15 - Another fast run to a small cluster of trees, plus 25 situps which were actually quite slow to perform.

16 - And another fast run to the volleyball court. I had to detour to Biz and Ellen in the parking lot and ask what "Court Killers" were. Turns out they were just sprints in the sand. I didn't go out too hard.

A very nice job by Molly and Waima, with not only some interesting route choices, but also a little bit of extra workout. Stephen had challenged me to run 40 minutes (based on a percentage of his own time,) but I failed to meet the mark. Bummer.