A Business Trip with a Bonus
Tuesday, 3. November 2009, 18:05:36
A week of work in the USA finished on Friday, and I had time for orienteering on Saturday before catching my 16:00 flight back home. Therefore, I set out in the dark in order to be ready for training at Surebridge Mountain with first light.
This area was used for WOC 1993, and is as good as I had expected - certainly one of the best that I've ever seen. Add to all that a steady drizzle, some mist, the autumn leaves (which meant that all the small paths were invisible), countless deer, and the most dangerous thing in the forest: falling acorns (big ones). I ran a 5 km course that I planned for myself in about 55 minutes, losing some time on validating controls (there were no markings, of course) but managing not to make any serious mistakes:
A note on the acorns: the oak trees there are really tall, so they fall from a great height. When the first one hit my car I thought I'd been shot at.
After the training I ran back to the car, dressed quickly, and drove to a local event held by HVO at Tourne County Park. I liked the informality of the event - get your map at registration and start whenever you want, with cookies waiting at the end.
I was really tired by the middle of the course (Red - 6.26 km, 60:22), so the slow progress (in red) is mostly due to fatigue. The terrain was nice (deer, leaves, and acorn bombs, but no rain), and my only mistake was a parallel error from 10 to 11, running to the right of the wrong marsh:
On the plane, I fell asleep before we even took off. And thanks to Daniel Schaublin for the Surebridge map, and HVO club for the event.
This area was used for WOC 1993, and is as good as I had expected - certainly one of the best that I've ever seen. Add to all that a steady drizzle, some mist, the autumn leaves (which meant that all the small paths were invisible), countless deer, and the most dangerous thing in the forest: falling acorns (big ones). I ran a 5 km course that I planned for myself in about 55 minutes, losing some time on validating controls (there were no markings, of course) but managing not to make any serious mistakes:
A note on the acorns: the oak trees there are really tall, so they fall from a great height. When the first one hit my car I thought I'd been shot at.
After the training I ran back to the car, dressed quickly, and drove to a local event held by HVO at Tourne County Park. I liked the informality of the event - get your map at registration and start whenever you want, with cookies waiting at the end.
I was really tired by the middle of the course (Red - 6.26 km, 60:22), so the slow progress (in red) is mostly due to fatigue. The terrain was nice (deer, leaves, and acorn bombs, but no rain), and my only mistake was a parallel error from 10 to 11, running to the right of the wrong marsh:
On the plane, I fell asleep before we even took off. And thanks to Daniel Schaublin for the Surebridge map, and HVO club for the event.
WIDGETIZE