23rd Annual CSU Rollerski race

(photo courtesy of Chris City)

Jamie Doucett has been holding a rollerski race in Andover for a really long time. 23 years. As far as I can remember, this was my third time doing it, and so far, each time has gotten faster, although this year I only nipped 2 seconds from last year's time. My body seems to remember how fast I'm supposed to go when I'm ski racing, and it just sort of goes that speed, until it can't anymore. So then I dug deep and held on for as long as I could, and it was enough to win! For the women, anyway.

It was a pleasant day, although it started out a bit chilly. There was a good group of skiers, mostly from Harvard and CSU, but a couple from further afield, as well. I love pack racing. I was kind of worried about my fitness - I really haven't been ski training as much as I know I should be, and I know that this course is relatively flat, which means a lot of double poling. But I figured it would also just be a nice reality check - how bad IS my upper body strength right now?

We took off, and the pack quickly thinned itself on the first uphill. I kick-double poled the whole way up, which isn't something I've done before, but it seemed faster. We got to the top, and I was dangling behind Bob Burnham and Ben Smeltzer, with a thicker pack ahead of them. Unlike the last time I did this race, I was not exactly killing it on the double pole sections. In fact, it may be more accurate to say I was getting dropped. Jamie passed me at some point on the long flat bits, and I thankfully jumped in his tall-person draft. I hung on his tail through the rest of the lap, passing two other fast starters, and even leading up the far hill, but as we came through the start/finish I knew that this whole drafting thing wasn't going to last much longer. He had already gapped me on the flat bit, and I couldn't make up the distance up the first big hill. I could see Bob still dangling ahead of me, but once Jamie caught up to him, it was all over. I could see them for most of the rest of the lap, trying really hard to catch up, and feeling more and more jarred by the pavement as my body just refused to cooperate with this whole "strength" thing I was asking it to do. Going through the motions, but nothing is happening.

By the time I finished, even my butt was sore. I couldn't bear the thought of one more kilometer on skis, so switched to running shoes for a cooldown - apparently, I'm not nearly as ski-fit as I'd like to be, but I can still squeeze out a result - I just suffer for it. Tomorrow should be fun.

But, I won! And, I broke my previous "record" by 2 seconds, and I'll take any improvement. I did lose 2:15 from the first to second laps, but hey, I'll keep my strategy of "start hard, then hang on" for mass starts. When it works, it's golden!

Results.

Relay championships

(more foliage on fire photos. Afternoon light after a windy day makes for super-bright leaves!)

Team CSU!






Last weekend, CSU headed out to St. Louis, Missouri for the US Orienteering Relay championships. Unlike the five thousand other championships that OUSA thinks it's necessary to hold, the relay champs are a club event, so it took some actual coordination to get enough people from CSU to commit to a team. But then we got the ball rolling, and ended up with two teams!

The way the relays work is that people are worth a certain number of points, given their age and sex. Given however many points you have in your club, you work it out so that you're racing in the 4-point, 8-point, or 12-point categories. You need to have 4 or more points to be in the 4-point category, 8 or more for the 8-point, etc. Men under the age of 40 are basically useless in terms of points, I think so that you can't field a team of four elite men, since not every club has the numbers to do that. Elite girls are worth 2 points each, so our first team had both Ali and me, each worth 2 points, and then two zero-point guys - Ian Smith, and Mikkel Conradi. The other team had Peter (3 points), Bill (3 points), Greg (0 points), and Brendan (0 points). So we ended up fielding two 4-point teams.

To make this even more fun, my friend Sharon, from Colby, is in St Louis these days, and agreed to come hang out with us all weekend! It was awesome to see her, and she even got to go out on a beginner course, shadowed by Ali.


Most of us arrived in St Louis Friday, in time to head out to Cuivre River park for a sprint course, that I used to preview the terrain for the night-o championships race that night. This was obscure championships week, by the way - we had a corn maze classic and sprint distance championships on Tuesday, courtesy of Peter, and then the rollerski-o middle distance and sprint championships on Wednesday, also courtesy of Peter. Friday was the night-o championships, and Sunday was the relay champs. Obscure sports quarterly, I'm coming for your front page.

Anyway, the night-o was a lot of fun. I was harboring secret hopes that I would beat Ali, as I think she tends to slow down at night and I speed up, but it's just too hard to ignore that 3-min difference in 5k times when you're racing a running sport, and while I was closer than usual, I still got beaten. I felt like it was a really good race nonetheless - I managed to catch Carol by #9 from 2 minutes back, and I could push really hard, physically. It was a nice night for running, and a silver medal is nothing to scoff at.

Saturday was a regular middle distance A-meet, and Ali had decided to run up with the boys on the blue course, so the win was there for the taking. I took it, but couldn't quite beat the guys who took 1st-4th. Another good race, and very clean, from a technical point of view. I relied heavily on my compass when approaching reentrants from above, and with the wide-open forests and gentle slopes, there was a lot of fast running on that course.

Sharon came out to the start with me, and was my very own paparazzi - go me!

How to eat funnel cake.
How to puzzle over what to do with sticky fingers from eating funnel cake.

Hanging out in the sun Saturday afternoon was nice.

Saturday afternoon, we headed to the model map - a sample bit of map on a sample bit of terrain, to see what it would be like for the relay. None of us had ever done floodplain orienteering before, and it turns out there aren't many features (other than the random dumpster), and there is no climb. Anywhere. It was a strange sort of area, and I'm glad we checked it out.

The sun was starting to go down, and the light made the trees across the lake look like they were flaming. Beautiful.
Fanning out to check out the footing and the mapping of this area.




This is how I felt about the terrain and the mapping style for the floodplain relay. Very strange, very different than normal.

Sunday rolled around and we were all pretty pumped for the REAL event of the weekend. Our main rivals were Delaware Valley Orienteering Association (DVOA) - they were fielding an allstar team, and we were definitely worried about how we'd stack up. Our order went me -> Ian -> Ali -> Mikkel. We had been unsure of the order for Ali and Mikkel, since the courses are different for each leg, and the last leg was longest, and Ali is in better shape than Mikkel. But, he settled it by saying that he could run a 25s 200m, and we figured that might be necessary, so put him on the last leg. Team two went Brendan -> Peter -> Bill -> Greg. I was kind of worried they'd beat Team 1, but we were ok =).
First team for CSU: Mikkel, Ali, Ian, and me. Why do I look like I should be the mascot or something?

Starting line, under threatening skies (Dan Barker photo).
On the start line. Sharon McMonagle photo.

The start. Greg Walker's photos.




We started off, and I could immediately feel my calves tighten up. This wasn't good, but I figured I had no choice other than to push through it. Brendan was pulling the pack out front, and Zac Barker, DVOA's first runner, was close behind him. Zac is young (therefore worth points), but he is speedy, and with good visibility he'll have no issues keeping up. I just hoped to stay close to Brendan, who I know is faster than me, but could potentially pull me to a really awesome leg and a lead-off to Ian in the front of the race. As we kept running, though, I knew I was in trouble. My calves felt awful, and I was at the point where I couldn't push off my toes, so my running was more of a stumble. I just had to make it through 4km, but with the soft footing in the floodplain, I was truly floundering. It helped that Zac and Brendan were in front of me, because I could take smarter micro-routes, but you couldn't hide the fact that I just couldn't run fast enough.

By the time I got to the open field and ~500m left to go, it was a pure mental game for me. I knew I had to stay within visual contact of Zac (Brendan was by now well off the front), so that Ian could reel in Vadim on the second leg. Do it for your team, do it for you team, keep running! But I had no power in my legs, I physically could not push off of my toes - I thought maybe I would trip over myself since I couldn't pick my legs up fast enough, I was just stumbling my way into the finish.

Me finishing my leg, before tagging off to Ian. Greg's photo.

It was good enough, and I tagged to Ian in 4th place overall, third among the 4-point teams. Ian was able to overcome the gap, but he couldn't drop Vadim, DVOA's second runner, completely. He opened up about a 20s lead, but that was still visual contact, which meant that we had no chance to fully escape from them.
The tag.

Ian's graceful tag off to Ali. The next photo in this series was Ian on the ground. Greg Walker photo.

Ali went out and ran well, but Clem, DVOA's third runner, closed the gap, and they were running together through much of the leg. There were four different spectator controls, that we could see across the lake, and it was super exciting to watch the lead changes! Ali succeeded in putting a bit of time on Clem in the last open running parts, but again, Wyatt (DVOA's fourth runner) was able to close the gap to Mikkel. This actually worked in our favor, as Mikkel didn't try to drop Wyatt again - he was happy to run with him, and to make things even more exciting, they caught up the top two teams in the 8-point category, so that the last spectator control saw all four runners coming at once. As they came flying across the last fields, you could tell that Mikkel looked fresher than Wyatt, but it didn't help the nail biting. My throat is still sore from cheering Mikkel in to the line, and he successfully out-kicked Wyatt, bringing the relay gold to the realm of CSU!

Mikkel screaming to victory after out-kicking Wyatt, for one of the closest finishes ever in the US relay champs.

Wooo! We won!

DVOA put up an awesome fight, and I was proud to get to run against these perennial champions. I was prouder still of CSU, for running smart, running hard, and running together. Yeah CSU!

US Sprint/Middle/Long Champs: the race report

If I were smart, I wouldn't try to race while also in a managerial role, but we all know that I'm not very smart. So, I signed up to race all three days, since that is three more A-meet days to add to my ranking, plus a WRE - very cool stuff! The sprint was really the only day where I felt good, physically, but I thought maybe I could get away with not feeling so awesome, and still managing a good result. That didn't actually happen, not so surprisingly.

The sprint was super interesting. There was some fast fields-running, but a lot of very technical thinking in the woods - yes, you could run on trails, but you really had to keep track of where you were. I made a bunch of mistakes, not to mention all the hesitations, but still came through in 6th, good enough for third place US and a medal! Ali was almost 3 minutes ahead of me, and she had made mistakes, too.


After all the heavy lifting that evening, I tried to pretend that I was feeling fresh for the middle, but somehow my brain didn't believe me. It was another super interesting course, that made great use of the little bits of nice forest. Again, it was very technical, with low visibility, but I really enjoyed the course. I was being pretty cautious in the beginning, trying not to lose time through mistakes, but balancing not losing time through being too hesitant. I lost some time on 5 and 6, maybe a minute total, but I was starting to really flow by the time I hit 7-9. After making another mistake on 11, Carol Ross, our favorite Canadian, caught up to me from four minutes back, and we started racing pretty hard head-to-head. That's my favorite kind of orienteering!


We finally parted ways on the way to 15 - I saw the smarter southern route, and picked up a minute over Carol just by doing that. I knew it was smart, and was trying to push the pace, hoping to drop her enough to beat her in the results, but then I went and totally goofed on 18, and ended up almost 10 minutes out of the lead. This time I was 9th overall, and fifth American, so no more medals for me.
Splits.

Dave Yee was taking more photos today, and caught some of me during my race. One of my gaiters fell down, which, aside from causing a lot of pain when running through brambles, is a serious fashion faux-pas. Gasp.

Coming in for the finish punch clearly requires a lot of concentration.


Photo courtesy of Clem McGrath.


The banquet Saturday night went over well, and Ali and I gave out awards. Sunday dawned way too early, and aside from freezing my toes off, the morning set-up went well, and I found myself on the third start line for the weekend. I knew there would be a lot of trail running today, given the nature of the Fells, so I was trying to be prepared to run fast. Unfortunately, it turns out my body just didn't have much to give in the face of running fast, and there were many moments where my brain really wanted my legs to be moving a little faster. I suppose that's the crux of sports. Want to go faster, but can't.

I still managed to make mistakes - nearly 9 minutes of mistakes - and that kind of disappoints me. Because if I had felt like I wanted to go faster, then I damn well should have made sure the orienteering was as perfect as it could be. I caught up to Tori Borish fairly early on, and I kept trying to drop her, which wasn't actually a good plan, because it meant that for two controls in a row, I was a complete goofmuppet. Eventually I found that pesky control #12, and I was PISSED. Ali had caught up to me (from eight minutes back or some such ridiculousness), but I outran her to both control 13 and 14. Either because I orienteer better when I'm really mad at myself, or because I orienteer better when I'm racing someone head-to-head, not sure. Unfortunately, a long trail run followed control 14, and I lost Ali pretty quickly.

Starting around 18 it became a slog; I couldn't drop Tori, and I just couldn't make myself go any faster. I totally blew #22, but managed to hold it together to come in 7th, 4th American, and just two minutes out of the medals. Hardly a good race, but given the circumstances, entirely acceptable. The last four nights, I've averaged 9.5hrs of sleep. It's been glorious.

The route from Sunday's long race. The straight-line distance was 10.x km, and I ended up running 13.7. I guess that's a long time to be running. I hadn't thought to bring any gels, so I put some candy corn in a little baggy and stuffed that down my sports bra - it turns out, candy corn melts. And is very difficult to chew, mid-race. Just fyi.

2011 Sprint/Middle/Long US Orienteering Championships

Way back last fall, Ed and a couple other big thinkers decided that CSU wanted to host the sprint/middle/long individual US championships for orienteering. We had a new map being developed of Lynn Woods, and we finally had the full map (all the way around the reservoir) of Middlesex Fells, and we thought we could do an updated map of Franklin Park, to have three pretty exciting venues. We went about securing permits and coercing talented orienteers to set courses for us, and after a bit of a battle with the sanctioning committee, who basically just don't like our terrain, we were set to go.

Ed has a bit of a perfectionist streak in him. This meet was going to be perfect, or he would break himself trying. Giovanni, another CSU member, was the other meet director - basically, they both wanted to be meet directors for this thing, and we figured, heck, let 'em both do it! The problem, or maybe blessing, is that both Ed and Giovanni are very technologically-minded, and they had all sorts of new innovative things they wanted to try out at this meet. In the end, most of their ideas came to fruition, but there were a couple that we just didn't have time to do.

I was registrar, which meant that I got to deal with all the whiners, but this was a good lesson in patience, and in biting my tongue before snapping at people who were really driving me up the wall. "Of course you can have the 10:34am start time. I understand that 10:28am won't work for you. Let me see what I can do". The majority of people are very pleasant to work with, but it's those few brats who stick in your mind...

The competition was held over three days - Friday through Sunday, at three different venues: Franklin Park, Lynn Woods, and Middlesex Fells. CSU is a small club, and most of our members are in the M/F21+ class, the elites - most of us wanted to run in the US champs. This stretches a small number of volunteers over a huge task list, and everyone who did volunteer, did it to excess. We couldn't have made the thing go as smoothly as it did without the blood sacrifices of all our volunteers. Well, hopefully not too much blood, but certainly plenty of sweat and tears. Ok, maybe not even that many tears - just my own, on Sunday morning, pre-breakfast setting up the arena in the dark with the frost on the grass chilling my toes. Thankfully, Ken went out and acquired me some McGoodness, and it was hot and greasy and filling and delicious.

Friday morning was a potential disaster. Ed and I had been scurrying around since 6am, loading equipment, carrying equipment, driving places, and Giovanni and Katia had been scurrying around since 6am, acquiring our rental truck, our rental tent, and all the rental tables and chairs. Unfortunately, the rental place couldn't get the truck until something like 8am, and so the truck, loaded with tent and chairs and stuff, didn't arrive at the arena until close to 11am, with the first starts slated for 1pm. To make matters considerably worse, when Ed and I arrived at Franklin Park, the field in which we were planning to set up the tent was thoroughly soggy, and the groundskeeper waiting for us refused to let us drive any vehicles across the grass.

The tent had to go in its designated spot in the middle of the field for a bunch of reasons, so, we started carrying out all the equipment. It was ~200m walk, through soggy, muddy, grass, and we had about twelve people carrying however many thousands of pounds across this field. Thankfully we had two dollies, but we were cutting it pretty close with getting people registered and the arena set up before race start. In the end, the day went fabulously, and pretty much everyone had a really great time - except one guy, but he's an inveterate complainer, so we had no choice but to mostly ignore him.

Of course, at the end of the day, we still had to carry all that equipment back to the truck, and thankfully a handful of non-CSU runners stuck around to help us out. We would never have made it to the evening packet pick-up without their help. Actually, Ed almost didn't make it to the evening packet pick-up - his truck wouldn't start after we'd loaded everything up. We shifted all the registration gear into someone else's car, put me in the car, and I headed up to the meet headquarters, leaving Ed alone in the dark with a finicky truck to figure it out on his own. He got things working and arrived shortly after me, but by 9:30pm, when we finally got a chance to escape and have some dinner, we were both pretty wiped.



The racing was fast and furious, and visiting Canadians definitely gave the American runners some competition. Above, Carol Ross and Hannah Burgess sprint in to the finish - Dave Yee photo.
Brendan Shields, course setter, enjoying all the praise people had for his courses. Dave Yee photo.
Morning scene: piles of boxes in a field.


Ali Crocker in the finish chute - Ali made it three for three wins this weekend - champ! Dave Yee photo.

Results

Greg Balter and Peter Gagarin manned the microphone all weekend - and they did an excellent job, especially with the elite runners' announcing. Dave Yee photo.

Ed doing what he does, and fixing problems. Dave Yee photo.

Saturday was another early morning, but thankfully we didn't have to carry the equipment very far - just unload the truck and set up. It made things go much more smoothly, and there were far fewer snags through the day. The US Junior's team set up a concession stand as a fundraiser, and that was highly possible, as was the US Senior Team's meet-and-greet - people were invited to come over and talk to the team members about their routes and orienteering in general, and people seemed to really like that. I didn't get much of a chance to partake, as I was manning the registration table, but everyone seemed really happy with the whole day, meet workers included! Saturday's race was a World Ranking Event, and that definitely attracted some foreign blood - we had Canadians, Americans, Swedes, Germans, Ukranians, Czech, and Irish racing in the elite race.
Meet and greet the US team, and talk about orienteering - a typical orienteering huddle. Dave Yee photo.

Results

Tent set-up. Good times.

I feel like this photo catches the American orienteering scene really well - four runners, all on different courses and in different classes, approaching the spectator control on the middle distance race. Dave Yee photo.
Then Neil blasted past the slower runners. Dave Yee photo.

Bernie helping the juniors at the concession stand. Dave Yee photo.
Gary Richter showed up with his Icebug trailer - it was nice to have some vendors around, added to the buzz around the arena.

Kseniya showing the anxiety that you feel during an orienteering race - so much pressure to not mess up! Where do I go next? What is my attackpoint? I need to be running faster! Ahhh! Dave Yee photo.
Middle distance women's WRE course.

Saturday night was the banquet, and awards - the top three US contenders got medals, but the top three overall got prizes, and the prizes were sweet - a puzzle made up of the map from that day! People really liked the puzzles. The banquet went over well, and the food was tasty. We also all sang Larry Berman happy birthday, which I think he really appreciated.

Sunday morning dawned clear and frigid, and Ed and Giovanni made the decision that we didn't need to erect the tent. This decision was extremely well-received by the volunteers, and we quickly set up the arena and eventually the sun came up and melted the frost. By that point I had digested my McMuffin, and found another layer of clothing to wear (over jacket and down vest):
The Walker boys taking care of electronic stuff. Greg was trying out the new fashion of sideways headlamps. Apparently it's less ideal for actually seeing things in the dark.
Eric and Ali, champions for the day, handing out awards to all the other classes.

The race went very smoothly; apparently we were old hands by now, and we managed to get most people their awards before they left, so that was good. By the time we packed up and left, we were feeling pretty good about the entire weekend. I think I'm glad that we put on that meet, but I'm not sure I can handle doing it again for another couple years.

And Jess showed up Sunday afternoon, after rocking out in her xc running race earlier in the day! We went on a control pick-up hike, and I know I had a good time catching up.