F*@#^%n' Sand Dunes
Another MNOC meet today, on a sunny, above average day - but it was at Sand Dunes. The terrain is terrific,
but the large amount of undergrowth (i.e., prickly ash, assorted raspberry vines, and more prickly ash) and
active "forest management" (i.e., logging) tend to cause a pretty slow and painful pace. Throw in an
alarming amount of poison ivy and some active wood ticks, and you've got a fun day in the woods.
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Bridges Galore!
This week's training, courtesy of Mike, down in Bloomington. He set a "Bridges of Hennepin County" course in the
Moir (Central) Park
- Nine Mile Creek Area. We started at the park, just off 104th St, and had to visit nine bridges (a numerical coincidence),
subject to the constraint of having to visit at least one marked control point (any one) in between bridges. By their very
nature, all the bridges were at the bottom of the valley, and Mike set most of the interim controls near the top of the valley,
making this a great hill workout.
Map and route after the jump.
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OTNT at Tamarack
Another Tuesday night training as the spring weather just continues to get better. This time it was at Tamarack Nature
Center on Tuesday the 7th. We all met in the parking lot between 6 and 6:30 PM, and did another "Scrabble-O" like the one Ian set up at Lake
Elmo last year. Tamarack has a permanent orienteering course with control labeled A-X, so as each of us arrived, we shook
up a tub full of 24 Scrabble tiles and drew 10 consecutive control letters. The training event was to visit them all in
the order we drew them. This was also billed as "Scrabble-O plus", so Ian enlightened us by specifying that we had to drop
and do 10 pushups at each control, for a total of 100 on the night.
Map and analysis below the fold.
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This Year's Hyland Park Sprint
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.
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Some Navigation Training Ideas
I thought I'd try to record for posterity some of the more unique and interesting events we've done during our informal TNT (Tuesday Night Training)
sessions.
December 2008 (Stephen & Kari) - "The Orienteerduobowlathlon".
October 2008 (Pete) - Team Memory-O at Battle Creek.
September 2008 (Todd) - Flow course at Como.
August 2008 (Mo & Biz) - "Search for the One-Eyed Hooker" at Wirth.
July 2008 (Mike) - "Leader of the Pack" plus sprint at Hyland
April 2008 (Ian) - Scrabble-O at Lake Elmo
August 2007 (Darryn) - Trail course at Wirth
More details on each below the fold.
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A Great Day at Afton
MNOC had their second winter meet of the year at Afton State Park today. As usual in winter, it's a score event with a mass start at a given time.
Competitors can then fan out to find a variable number of controls, in any order, and must return to the finish before a given deadline, or lose
points. Scoring is first by number of controls (including penalty points), then fastest time. Today we had 26 controls, expertly set by Todd,
and 90 minutes to find them.
Map and race report are below the fold.
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Our Annual Moon Viewing
Last night some friends and I had our annual moon viewing and cookout at Afton State Park. For five years running (I wasn't at the first one, though),
we've picked a moonlit night in late winter, picked a state park with walk-in fire rings or campsites, and gathered to enjoy the weather, the scenery,
and each other's company. Two years ago we even got it to coincide with a lunar eclipse.
This year Mike, Julia, Ian and I were all there at 6 PM, and Mike had set up a little orienteering challenge for the
early arrivals. We each got three controls and a pre-marked map, and had to set up the controls on the way into the
campsite. I ended up with the most difficult three. Partway into the route, something happened to the switch on my headlamp - it would reliably
turn off about a half second after I'd turn it on. So I had to make do with half second glimpses of the map (with a red LED, no less.) But I managed
to place them in the right locations, even though I was last to arrive at the campsite.
Right as we were lugging lumber from the cut wood pile over to the fire ring,
Dan and Rebecca showed up. At the same time, the sky started to clear from northwest to southeast and revealed a bright full moon high in the sky.
The wind died down as well, so got a good fire going and all sat around for about five hours, with plenty of food and beverages to go around.
Julia got a bunch of teasing about the new job she's applying for. Dan and Rebecca left a little early, and the rest of us stayed until after
midnight. When the fire finally died down, we swapped maps and picked up the controls we had put out earlier.
So far the weather's cooperated every time - here's hoping for five more successful years.
Washington (State) in the Winter
Last weekend I flew out to Seattle to visit Annie for a couple days. We had a tight itinerary due to both our work schedules - we spent 2 days
out on the Olympic Peninsula and one in town, then I spent most of the day Tuesday getting home.
Highlights include running a COC winter meet at Shoreline Park on Saturday, staying at a llama farm on Sunday, getting smacked in the ass by
the Pacific Ocean, and exploring downtown Seattle on Monday.
More details below the fold.
The Seattle skyline at night
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Report from Possum Trot XII
This year's Possum Trot was on the south side of the Bluffwoods CA (PT IX was on the north half of the map.)
We had nine people going down in two cars - Mike, Julia, Ian, me, Molly, Justin, Tom, Jerritt, and Jim. We represented well
at all three of the weekend events - Justin and I placed 1-2 in the Saturday sprint course on the campus of Johnson
Community College, and Ian took his age group. The next day we placed 2nd-4th in the 13 km Possum Trot, and Tom
took 6th. On the women's side, Julia took 3rd behind Anna S-S and Sharon (that's her running to the finish.)
The Christmas party was a lot of fun this year as well - back at the pizza joint from a couple years ago. There wasn't as
much stealing during the white elephant gift game, though, somewhat of a disappointment. I ended up with the box of chocolate
goodies that Ian had brought, so we had something to share between the vans on the long drive home.
The true geekery commences below the fold.
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13th Place at USARA Nationals!
The title says it all!
We didn't find out the results until the banquet at the equestrian center. Our perserverance earned us 13th place out of 81 teams,
61 official finishers.
Also congrats to Wedali for finishing 4th-5th, Midwest for 23rd place, and 24Seven who got one more CP than we did but unfortunately lost
a lot of points for being late.
Race report and maps below the fold.
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