Early Season Racing and Navigation
I did the BEAST #2 race a few nights ago and had a great time (race report). Trea and I finished 10th, and 2nd in two-person co-ed, but only by 1 second. Maybe if I had run one more step towards CP1, I could have moved up a spot. Or simply not have getting a flat tire during the bike section would have done the trick. I have to say good job to Eric Bone, Roger Michel from Meridian Graphics and the rest of the volunteers for putting on good fun mid-week races. It really breaks up the week and the training regiment to have a race in the middle of the week like that.
Eric and Meridian Graphics puts on many other local events; one of them being the Street Scramble. I decided on doing the 3 hour bike option of this rogaine (go get as many CP’s as you can in a limited time period) orienteering course because I need to work on biking and navigation at the same time. Apparently many of the other competitors did not share this need because I got my butt kicked. I could say they beat me because they were on road bikes and I was on a MTB, but that would simply be wishful thinking. They just have more experience, choose better routes and did not get lost. But I went out there to work on such things. Plus it was a good excuse to work on my northwest tan (cook off outer layer of pasty white skin)
In AR navigation can make or break a race. There is nothing worse than hiking or biking up a large hill only to figure out once you are near the top that you have gone the wrong way. Major blunders tend to happen during longer race and more at night when sight is limited, but a wrong turn can be just as bad during a short race. Earlier this year in the Trioba race we lost nearly a half hour searching for a CP flag simply because we made a right turn about 20 feet too early. Had we continued up the hill, we would have hit the CP dead on and not missed a beat. That one mistake cost us around ten places in the final ranking. But that is why I enjoy AR so much, it is not simply how fast you can go, but how fast you can go in the correct direction.
So that is why I go out and do orienteering events like the Street Scramble or the Cascade Orienteering Club events. It is good training, plus it is fun. They also tend to be more relaxed and less gear intensive than an AR race. The problem is the distance between CP are limited and the overall courses are not that long. It’s good training, but there is no real substitute for going out and doing long orienteering sections. I wish I had done more of it before last year's SPQ. During the race we were only “lost” once and even then it was not that lost, thanks to a big lake to our north we could navigate off of, but I would say we did not always take the most efficient route. I am sure sleep deprivation had a great deal to do with those decisions. Yet another fun aspect of longer races.
After all the talk about navigation and route choice I am faced with a dilemma. It turns out the expedition race I was planning to do in October (website) does not really have any navigation involved. Dirtworld.com found that out the hard way after their recent win in a 12 hours race down there (report) . I understand the concept of not wanting racers to go on fragile terrain in sensitive environments, but from the sounds of the 12 hour race they had people out there directing traffic. That sounds more like an off road Tri with a few extras thrown in than a real adventure race. Maybe it is just me being weird and enjoying the bushwhacking sections. That is as long as I am not carrying my bike. (See SPQ recap for details)
Turns out Trea is not longer going to Siberia for the entire summer, as was the case as of last week. Now she is simply off to Korea for 2 months. That means she will be able to race the x-Raid with us, but once she is gone, we will be back in the same boat of searching for a female racer. But that is a few months off, so I’ll worry about that then.
Well time to go kayaking. Now there is a discipline that can change greatly from race to race. Kayaks, cannons, inflatables, I even did a race were we swam on inter-tubs.
Robin likes to eat mud for breakfast...Photo by Mike Bitton
Eric and Meridian Graphics puts on many other local events; one of them being the Street Scramble. I decided on doing the 3 hour bike option of this rogaine (go get as many CP’s as you can in a limited time period) orienteering course because I need to work on biking and navigation at the same time. Apparently many of the other competitors did not share this need because I got my butt kicked. I could say they beat me because they were on road bikes and I was on a MTB, but that would simply be wishful thinking. They just have more experience, choose better routes and did not get lost. But I went out there to work on such things. Plus it was a good excuse to work on my northwest tan (cook off outer layer of pasty white skin)
In AR navigation can make or break a race. There is nothing worse than hiking or biking up a large hill only to figure out once you are near the top that you have gone the wrong way. Major blunders tend to happen during longer race and more at night when sight is limited, but a wrong turn can be just as bad during a short race. Earlier this year in the Trioba race we lost nearly a half hour searching for a CP flag simply because we made a right turn about 20 feet too early. Had we continued up the hill, we would have hit the CP dead on and not missed a beat. That one mistake cost us around ten places in the final ranking. But that is why I enjoy AR so much, it is not simply how fast you can go, but how fast you can go in the correct direction.
So that is why I go out and do orienteering events like the Street Scramble or the Cascade Orienteering Club events. It is good training, plus it is fun. They also tend to be more relaxed and less gear intensive than an AR race. The problem is the distance between CP are limited and the overall courses are not that long. It’s good training, but there is no real substitute for going out and doing long orienteering sections. I wish I had done more of it before last year's SPQ. During the race we were only “lost” once and even then it was not that lost, thanks to a big lake to our north we could navigate off of, but I would say we did not always take the most efficient route. I am sure sleep deprivation had a great deal to do with those decisions. Yet another fun aspect of longer races.
After all the talk about navigation and route choice I am faced with a dilemma. It turns out the expedition race I was planning to do in October (website) does not really have any navigation involved. Dirtworld.com found that out the hard way after their recent win in a 12 hours race down there (report) . I understand the concept of not wanting racers to go on fragile terrain in sensitive environments, but from the sounds of the 12 hour race they had people out there directing traffic. That sounds more like an off road Tri with a few extras thrown in than a real adventure race. Maybe it is just me being weird and enjoying the bushwhacking sections. That is as long as I am not carrying my bike. (See SPQ recap for details)
Turns out Trea is not longer going to Siberia for the entire summer, as was the case as of last week. Now she is simply off to Korea for 2 months. That means she will be able to race the x-Raid with us, but once she is gone, we will be back in the same boat of searching for a female racer. But that is a few months off, so I’ll worry about that then.
Well time to go kayaking. Now there is a discipline that can change greatly from race to race. Kayaks, cannons, inflatables, I even did a race were we swam on inter-tubs.
Robin likes to eat mud for breakfast...Photo by Mike Bitton
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