North American Orienteering Championships

This post may become way too long, but I felt like I just had two weeks of fun packed into one weekend.  As Ken put it, I have an awesomeness hangover right now.  

The North American Orienteering Championships (NAOC)  happens every two years, and it's a Big Deal.  I missed the last one, but I was definitely going to make it to this event.  Not only is it the biggest orienteering event on North American soil, it would be a chance to see all of my friends who are scattered across the globe, since pretty much everybody made this event a priority.  The champs were hosted by the Delaware Valley Orienteering Club (DVOA), and they did a fantastic job, raising the bar in every way imaginable.  Ed had gotten himself involved early on, since he's been doing some pretty innovative stuff himself on the technology front, and he and Eddie were the guys in charge of internet for the arenas.  This is a massively important task, because if you want to bring orienteering out of the forest, you need some way to get all the exciting bits onto the web, and asap.  So, this involved three separate trips to PA for Ed and Eddie to play around with getting various repeater towers on various hilltops, including across the river in New Jersey for one of the day's arenas, the one that was miles off into the woods.  I think Ed had a good time doing that, and the best part was he still got to race.

The way NAOC works is that there are three individual races, and a relay.  Canada and the United States compete for the Björn Kjellström cup.  Runners are given points based on their finish in the individual races (25, 22, 19, 16, 13, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1), and more points are better.  The points are only awarded to "eligible" runners, i.e. passport holders from the U.S. or Canada.  This year, they also introduced the Future Champions cup, which was a separate competition for juniors.  Being able to compete for your country with the lofty goal of beating Canada raises the level of competition to a whole new fury.  Awesome!  To set things in perspective, in the last 32 years that we've been racing for the BK cup, Canada has won 14 times, the U.S. just twice.  Pressure is ON.  Of course, because these races were also World Ranking Events, there was a healthy contingent of runners from other countries than North America, and that also helped to raise the level of competition.  

I drove down to PA with Ross, Sam, and Karen, three of four CSU members currently living in Sweden these days.  They were all really excited by the whole "fall season" thing that the northeastern US does so well, with apples, apple pies, beautiful weather, beautiful trees - apparently, Swedes just don't get it, because in Sweden, fall is just like a rainier winter.  *shudder*

So, after we arrived at the Pocono Environmental Education Center (PEEC), which was the site of all the cabins where people were staying, we went off in search of touristy things to look at.  The above photo is the actual Delaware Water Gap.  It was pretty cool.

Clem wanted a billboard, so purchased a billboard.  Although it might not bring people to the race, it was pretty damn cool to see orienteering alongside the highway!

As I mentioned, we all stayed in these camp-like cabins at PEEC.  It was really the only option for lodging, since PEEC is in the middle of freakn' nowhere, and it was really fun to have all of my bestest friends staying in one place.  I don't think any of us slept near enough, since we were all busy catching up.  And playing boggle.  And bananagrams.  And seven wonders.  And cabin orienteering.  I think the CSU cabin may have had all of CSU; it came pretty close if not, with 30 of us all spreading our dirty laundry out front.  Wait, you're not supposed to do that?

Bunkhouse style accommodation, and I'm glad I brought earplugs, since there are certainly some snorers in the group.

Games, endlessly!

Ross made a rough map of the cabin, and put out "controls", which were just little pieces of tape with a number of them.  Then people got to run the race, which took between 2-3 minutes.  Of course, this was happening at the same time that Sara Mae was attempting to hand out birthday cake for Larry, whose 78th birthday was the next day.  Nothing better than some barely-controlled chaos!  

Here's Giacomo, exiting the ladies' bathroom, in search of controls.

I totally would have won if Sara Mae hadn't been handing out cake.

Ross finally got his cast off his broken elbow, and his left arm is significantly smaller than the right.  And yet he still challenged Ed to arm wrestling.  He lost, very quickly.

Oh yeah, and we ran some races!  The first race of the weekend was a middle distance, in some very technical, tricky terrain with low visibility.  It was also raining torrentially, enough that people with glasses were at a severe disadvantage.  As I stood on the start line, the very last starter among the elite women, the rain started to come down even harder.  Apparently the DE water gap got 3" of rain on Friday.  Thankfully, it wasn't cold.  

I think these photos of Katia and Ian, taken by Julie Keim, capture the moment pretty well.

My race was pretty terrible.  I missed #1 by a lot, and just couldn't relocate to find the damn thing; ~4min lost on that leg alone.  Not how you want to start your race!  I then proceeded to lose another 4 minutes on the next five controls, and it wasn't until #7 that I finally got my head screwed on straight.  I tried to keep the focus and keep attacking, but that's always a challenge when you've messed up so disastrously in the beginning of the race.  Near the end, I caught up to Carol Ross, one of my favorite Canadians, and we had a good fight to the finish, but I was pretty upset with how I'd raced this race.  Splits, and IOF results.  The U.S. ended up clobbering Canada in both the men's and women's races, taking 1-2-5 for the women (Ali, Sam, and Alison), and 1-3-4 for the men (Eric, Ken, and Boris).

Cooldown in the rain with Boris, who also was disappointed with his race.

Gail fighting through the rain like a champ.

Ross

I love this photo - Nevin just looks so annoyed, as Balter goes on Baltering about something.  They did a damn good job announcing with the amount of information they'd been given.

Greg

Caroline!

The men's team discussing routes and splits afterward.

Ken

Sergei and Karen racing to the finish.

Becky

So, after that disaster of a race, I refocused.  I knew that I wanted to pick good routes for the long distance, execute them cleanly, and run as fast as I could anytime I got the chance.  I was the very last starter again for the elite women, but I had Cristina 3 minutes ahead of me, and Carol 6 minutes up.  I was hoping to see both of them.  I ended up catching Cristina at #7, and Carol between 9-10, the first long leg, though she did catch me back when I made a small mistake at 11.  I thought it was another great course design, and I felt up to the challenge of the race, this time, racing aggressively and cleanly.  Unfortunately, I'm just not fast enough yet, and I think a lot of that is related to map reading and woods speed, since my average HR was one beat below my zone 3.  Clearly, I can push harder, I just need my brain to be able to keep up.  I ended up as the fourth North American, and though I was well ahead of 5th, I was way out of 3rd.  Splits, and IOF results.  This ended up being one of my best WRE point races, and also, very importantly, I beat two Swedes.  And for the second day in a row, we beat Canada!  1-2-4 for the women (Ali, Sam, me), and 1-6-7 for the men (Ross, Eric, Boris).

 

Check out those two long legs.  How would you approach #10?  I went to the right, on the trail, and then straight-ish.

The arena at the long distance was all on this broken shale stuff, but it worked pretty well for giving people an area to hang out and watch the races.  It also helped that it was sunnier that day.

Ed, doing what he does, making things work and fixing problems.

The business end of Ed's truck!

Next to a small tower. They had much bigger towers out in the woods.

One of my better photos - pizza!!

The ski-o team needed to get a photo, since we'd failed on getting one last season for sponsors and thank-yous.  Also, now we have a sweet headwear deal with Sauce.  Yipee!

Boris finishing the long.  Given that he's going to defend his PhD in Sweden on Friday, I was impressed with how well he ran.

Sunday was the sprint race, and then the relay race in the afternoon.  The sprint started early, and after a clear night, it was a very cold morning.  It was a forest sprint, a lot out in the woods, and while it was an interesting course, I never felt that I was moving at top speed.  Luckily, I kept it pretty clean, and the only thing I would have done differently was to read ahead on that last loop a little better, since I never knew what was coming next, and my orienteering became very reactionary.  It's a bummer that I did that last loop so poorly, because I think if I'd been confident, I could have held onto third place.  As it was, Louise bumped me down to fourth, by 17 seconds.   At #14, I'd been 3s ahead of her, but she just ran that last loop better than me, and pulled ahead.  Yarr!  But you can't dwell on that, the shoulda-woulda-coulda game gets you nowhere.  Splits, and IOF results.  In another display of dominance, we once again beat Canada: 1-2-4 for the women (Sam, Ali, me), and 1-2-4 for the men (Ross, Andrew, Boris).  

Ed sprinting in to the finish.  I would not want to be in his way.

I'm done!

SGB loping in to the finish.  Presto didn't run the sprint course, but usually, Presto wins the finish split, because Lori is standing at the other end when Stephen and Presto finish their race.

Ross and Sam were crowned sprint champions.  

The last race of the weekend was the relay between the U.S. and Canada.  At this point, we had a healthy lead, but there were several scenarios in which Canada could take back the lead and win the cup, so we definitely still had a race on our hands.  I'd been selected to run on the first team, and I was definitely feeling proud about that.  The relay consisted of two teams from the U.S., and two teams from Canada, for both seniors and juniors.  Everyone else stuck around to watch, and they were handing out relay guides, with maps of the relay, information about the racers, and all sorts of other useful stuff.  I thought the announcers did a great job keeping the excitement levels high, and the chaos to a minimum.  

My race went well - it was unremarkable, but I wanted to run very cleanly, and possibly sacrifice some speed in order to nail all my controls.  I succeeded in doing just that, except for ~20s miss on #8, which allowed Karen, our first leg runner for team two, to take the lead into the exchange zone.  It was really thrilling to run down the chute and tag off to Sam, representing my country at the highest level.  The first team ended up winning the race, and though Louise anchored Canada to second place, our second women's team still ended up third.  Unfortunately for the men, Ross, on the first leg, missed the last control - he just ran right by it, without punching, and so our first team was disqualified.  Thankfully our second team held on tough, and ended up in second place.  This was enough for us to win the BK cup, and we were all pretty pumped about that!  

So, Alex, how are you feeling about running first leg for the first US team?

Team cheer, with all the juniors and seniors together.

US Team 1, being announced before the race.

On the start line.  The Canadians look nervous.

Running away from a Canadian.

Into the finish!

And done.

The before shot, and the after shot, of team 1.

At the awards, team USA was presented with the Björn Kjellström cup.  That's Peter Goodwin, OUSA president, holding the cup.  

 

We may have beaten the Canadians, but we'll accept this little Canadian, we like her.

Overall, the weekend was awesome.  Winning the cup was just icing on the cake.  I got to hear the technical report from Ed, and all the details that need to work for things to run smoothly, worked.  He really enjoyed working with DVOA to make this event as amazing as it was.  I can't wait for the next episode, in 2014!

3000m time trial: 2012 version

The juniors had a 3k TT on the schedule last Tuesday, so I figured it's about time for me to do one, too.  The plan was to bike over to Wellesley and join them, but about a km from my house I broke my chain.  I've never done that before, and definitely wasn't expecting it - when I commute I carry a tube and some allen wrenches, but nothing more.  I considered skipping the 3k - maybe this was a sign that things just weren't going to go well.  Maybe it would be better to just go for some intervals, a controlled measure of hurt.  But by the time I'd walked my bike home, I'm gotten myself mentally prepped for 3k pain.  

I was on my own for this - obviously it would be easier to run with people around and on fresh legs, but I had neither.  I'm coming off some volume, and though last week marked the beginning of a short taper for the North American Orienteering Championships, it was only Tuesday.  I figured that I wouldn't have much snap, but hopefully I could just beast it out and get a respectable result.  My A goal was 11:22, the vdot equivalent of the 5k I ran last December, but B goal/I'll-be-happy-with-this was 11:39, my PR. C goal was 11:50, and while I was really hoping I wouldn't see the C goal, I didn't have any sense of where my fitness is right now, other than slightly suppressed from high volume the past few weeks. 

My legs felt fine in the warmup, but pretty flat when I tried to speed up. Ah well, run what you brung. I was trying real hard to pump myself up, brainwash myself into being a badass, but the brain wasn't buying it today.  Remember the name was in my head - "This is 10% luck, 20% skill, 15% concentrated power of will, 5% pleasure, 50% pain..." not a bad race song. Eventually I couldn't put it off any longer, and started the lonesome torture fest. It's such an accumulated pain tolerance sort of test, the first part always feels so easy, but you just know how much it will hurt, so soon.  I'm not sure I'll do another one of these alone again, but I do feel accomplished now that it's done.

I started too fast - was on track for A goal, but things started to get difficult around the mile marker. I started to notice the wind, for one, and by 2k I was definitely feeling the burn in my legs. Breathing switched from 2/2 to 2/1, and with 600m to go I'd definitely transitioned to the point in a race where it's your head, not your legs, that's in charge. Because the legs had long since disappeared. Full on wheeze-y freight train breathing; I think I really scared some guy who was walking around the track; that last 200 was ugly. I think the whole point of doing a race is just so that stopping can feel so. good. My god that was painful. But, I set a new PR!  Not by much, but I'll take my 11:32 and run with it, no pun intended.  I get to go in to NAOC with full confidence about my physical fitness. Now what's this orienteering stuff? 

Rainy week

I know it's been a rainy week when I run out of hooks around the apartment to dry clothing.  A normal person would probably just throw their clothes in the hamper, but I'm paranoid of my clothes sitting there mouldering while I slowly accrue enough dirty clothings to make the trip to the laundromat, so I try to dry my dirty clothing before dumping it in the bin.  The apartment also fills up with sopping wet, stinky shoes and boots.  Doesn't take long.  Anyway, this is all the product of having been outside having fun in the rain, so it's not all bad.  

Christophe happened to be in Boston over the weekend, so I conned him into coming for a "walk in the woods", which he, like any normal person, interpreted as a nice, easy, stretch of the legs on a trail somewhere.  What I really meant was that we were going to go bashing through the forest hanging streamers as prep for an orienteering meet I'm hosting in November.  He had fun, though, I think - I made him carry the maps with the control descriptions, while I had the master map, and he learned to speak orienteering jargon while giving me the control descriptions, so I hung the streamer on the right feature.  He also took some video, since apparently it's not normal to go running through the woods, and he needed some way to explain all these shenanigans to his girlfriend.

I had a relatively poor showing at the local meet on Saturday - I went straight from the long rollerski with the juniors in the morning to an event at Great Brook Farm, and ran the longest course as the second part of a combo OD.  Unfortunately, much of the running was on trails, and because I wasn't racing, I lost a lot of time to some of the speedier guys.  Results.  But my navigation was pretty clean, so that is always a nice confidence booster.  

Pete and myself waiting for everyone to finish so we can pick up controls.  Still doing my achilles physical therapy, and achilles has been behaving nicely.

Divying up the control-pickup-load.

In other news, it's been rainy, and that's not great for either your ski boots or your rollerskis.  But, rolling on damp roads is kind of nice, because there's less friction, and also, it's not hot.  I thought that this was bad:

But then we did a workout that had some dirt on the road, and this happened: 

I like the racing stripe down the side.

One of my juniors through I was just wearing full spandex.  I think it's time to get a certain rollerski designer to mock up some fenders for me!

Sometimes, I wimp out, and just ride my bike inside.  I've figured out a way to wedge a chair onto the handlebars (mostly supported by the table) so that I can work at the same time.  It's convenient.

Last week I also headed out into the field, to download some data from my temperature loggers in the West River watershed before winter comes, and the ice-out disappears them all.  The trip both acquired me more data (yay!), but also gave me a chance to tighten all the bolts and assess their locations for durability.  It was also another lovely gray day, which made the fall colors POP!  I love New England in the fall.  I miss cyclocross.

Covered bridge over the West in Dummerston.  River levels are still pretty low this fall, but better than they'd been over the summer.  And I hear there are plenty of fish.  Woo.

Calm little pool just upstream of some rapids on the Grassy Brook.

Jenny Coolidge Brook, up in the green mountain national forest.  I've electrofished this stream in the past.  

Gorgeous colors!

Higher elevations were shrouded in fog, and also gorgeous.  Not so long from now, I'll hopefully be skiing down this road!  (Moses Pond rd)

And skiing on this road!  (Danby rd)

The West River again.

Winhall River, near the base of Stratton Mt.

The plan for this weekend had been to run the Hudson Highlander, but in possibly the most unique reason for cancellation ever, the event has been canceled, because there's the possibility of some crazy dude being out there with a shotgun.  So, no 26km orienteering race for me, but I'll probably still head west and do some training in open forests and big hills, in preparation for the North American Orienteering Championships, coming up in two weeks.  Although I'm feeling physically fit, I'm not sure my orienteering is quite up to snuff right now.  Luckily, some of that can be trained from an armchair! 

Now time to get back to analyzing all that data I just downloaded... 

Nobscott Night-O

How to make orienteering even more crazy?  Do it at night!  I feel like a few years ago CSU was doing a lot more night training than we have lately, but part of that is the major movers and shakers have either moved away or decided other things are more important than orienteering training, and moved on with life.  So, less actual forest training these days.  This showed quite blatantly when I raced last Saturday, because I was just very unfocused and sloppy.  I took 71 minutes for a 5.4km course (running ~8km in the process, mostly in circles I think).  Without mistakes I think I should have been closer to 53-55 minutes, but I'm not really into playing the woulda-shoulda-coulda game.  It should have helped that I'd designed the course and put out the controls, but I think all that did was make me over-confident and sloppy in my orienteering.  I hear it helps to look at the map.



As you can see from the map above, I had a major disaster on both 9 and 11.  Both times, the disaster was related to ignoring my direction, and not clearly looking at the map before moving forwards.  Although it's embarrassing to orienteer like a total goofmuppet, it's also good to get a kick in the ass occasionally.  I didn't orienteer for most of August or September, and that showed.  I'm motivated now!  North Americans are around the corner, so it's time to get focused!
Results

September DPTT

Time for a fitness check-in.  With a summer of running under my belt, a month and change of ski training, and fall finally starting to make itself felt, it was time to see how the t-rex arms were doing in terms of propelling me down a ski track.  Thanks to the achilles tendonitis I have been doing more rollerskiing than I had expected, but not nearly as much as when I considered myself a serious skier.  Not sure what that makes me now... a ski coach who can't stop racing?  Or just a pure racerhead who'll take endorphins any way they come?

The double pole test is four times up a steep lil' bugger of a hill in Concord, and you add all your times together to get a final result.  This is a good measure of fitness, because it's not just one sprint up a hill - it tests your strength endurance, as well.  Can you keep up the speed on your fourth time up that mountain without your technique falling to pieces?  Our juniors do the test about once every two months, interspersed with other fitness tests like the 3k on a track, and the no pole time trial, which is evil incarnate, but I've managed to avoid doing any double pole tests all summer.  The last time I did a  test was last November, and I set a new PR at 12:28.  I figured that probably wasn't going to happen just yet, as I don't consider myself all that strong right now.  Except my core, that seems to be alright.

After a solid warmup, I started the test with one of my juniors, but quickly left her behind.  I felt really good today, snappy and strong through the core, which was a nice change from the achy and sore feeling I'd had earlier in the week.  I'm coming off an inadvertent rest week, since I sprained my ankle a week ago Tuesday, so got a couple extra rest days last week, and made the strangely mature decision to not push recovery too fast.  I had felt good on Tuesday during bounding intervals, too, so I guess it wasn't too surprising that the feeling lasted.  Going up the steep part I had "I'm so strong!" on repeat in my head, trying to lie myself into speediness.  At the top, I saw 3:06 on my watch, and though I wasn't super winded, my legs were burning, and I was a little bummed, since usually times just get slower after the first one of these.

The second rep I started behind Frank and Andy, two other coaches.  They started a little faster up the initial steep bit, but I was keeping pace, mostly, and thinking about getting a good forward position and then rocking on my heels.  Around the corner and suddenly my right pole starts slipping.  What's going on?  I look down and notice that the ferule has rotated by 90 degrees, so I pause, grab the tip, and rotate it back with my left hand.  Damn, apparently that pole grip needs some glue.  Then I realize I've rotated the tip so that it's 180 degrees off!  D'oh!  I grab the tip again and rotate it back to the correct position, cursing under my breath.  This whole operation has taken maybe 3 seconds total, but feels like forever. gah!  The brief pause in forward momentum has actually given me a break, and I attack the remaining hill with gusto, to a time of 3:06 again.  Well, I guess fixing the pole didn't affect my time that much.

Third time up and I'm still chasing Frank and Andy, this time closing in a bit as the hill flattens out and I up the tempo.  This is starting to really hurt by now, it feels like somebody has replaced my legs with jello.  Strange that it's my legs dying and not my arms, but I hope that's a testament to how much I was using my core rather than the arms.  Frank and Andy are done now, having starting one rep earlier, so I have to do the last hill on my own, but there is a big gaggle of juniors that started about a minute ahead of me.  Rabbits!  I resolve to leave everything I've got on this hill, focusing hard on getting the poles into the pavement early and applying power with my core.  I'm raggedly out of breath with my entire body shaking by the time I finish, but I managed to keep the times consistent, so I'm pleased.  I do a quick calculation in my head - 3:06 + 3:06 + 3:03 + 3:04 = 12:19!  New PR!

I'm suddenly feeling a whole lot more confident about this upcoming ski season.

Bicycle scavenger hunt

A few weeks ago, NEOC hosted an "urban ROGAINE", (ROGAINE stands for something like rugged outdoor group activity involving navigation and endurance - basically, a multi-hour orienteering race.  has nothing to do with a hair product), that could be completed either on foot or on a bike.  There were two categories, either a 1.5hr or 3hr time limit, and cyclists and runners were scored separately.  Naturally, I was interested, and so was Ed.  Unfortunately, I had to head out to Littleton for some rollerski action first, but the organizer was very accommodating and let me start out and time myself as the last finishers from the mass start in the morning were trickling in.

Ed opted for the foot approach, but made some key navigational mistakes.  oops.  I was on a bike, which obviously let me cover more ground, and the final results have me in the lead.  Results.  However, Joe and Jeff cleaned the course, and if it hadn't been for a broken chain causing them to come in way overtime, they totally should have won.  

It was a neat format - instead of hanging controls, you had to answer a question, that was written on a clue sheet you had to carry with you.  I quickly realized that the whole deal surrounding answering the clue would be the most time consuming part of the process, so I came up with a strategy.  We got 15 minutes to look at the map and plan a route before the clock started, so once I'd decided on a route, I wrote down the order of the checkpoints on my control card.  This would help me figure out which one I was going to go to next.  I also wore my ski-o map board, so that I could read the map while on the go, and also, slide the clue sheet in and out from the map board as I rode along.  This being urban riding, I didn't want to have to take my hands off the handlebars for very long.  I had a pen and a pencil in my bike jersey pocket, as well as the usual emergency stuff like a spare tube, allen wrenches, and dried figs.  I would memorize the clue for the next checkpoint as I was leaving the existing checkpoint, and pull out the pen or pencil as I approached the next checkpoint, looking for the right telephone pole or fire alarm box, in most cases.  This did make for a bit more strategy, but it was manageable.  

Answer sheet.  It was large and cumbersome, but slid nicely in and out of the ski-o map board, as did the clue sheet.  

15 minutes to study the map and plan a route.  

Map board did not interfere at all with riding the bike, except in terms of aerodynamics when I was in the drops - it doesn't fold up under my chin as well as I'd hope it would.  But it didn't seem to make riding a bike any more dangerous than usual.  

This is the map.  The blue line is my route, drawn in.  What do you think is the most efficient route?  I knew I was operating with tired legs, so tried to avoid any hills that looked too big, but I also knew that higher-numbered checkpoints were worth more points, so I wanted to make sure I hit those ones.  

In the end, I think I won (not counting Jeff and Joe's broken chain and overtime) not because of cycling speed or a good route, but through a mix of minimizing time losses at the controls, and comfort in riding through traffic.  Local knowledge definitely helped, too.  I think if I had been riding a cross bike or mountain bike rather than my road bike, I could have picked up a couple more points - I didn't feel like going too off road, and some of the higher-point controls were in parks on dirt trails.  The one time I did ride off road, it was sketchy as hell and very slow, so I didn't bother doing that again.  Road shoes also don't do too well on rocky hiking trails!  Oh well, next time.  This was a thoroughly entertaining way to spend an afternoon, and I'm glad I went!  

Just some photos

Life has been busy lately, but in a good way.  Thesis is clicking along, I'm forging ahead in hopefully the right direction, and have kept the panic attacks to a minimum.  We've managed to not travel on the weekends for pretty much all of August, which is a rare thing, but it's sort of nice to take a Sunday walk and have Saturday night at home.  One orienteering race last weekend, and the achilles held up well for the two sprints.  I was third in both, behind the same two guys in each sprint.  Results.  That felt good, and I've been training while coaching with the juniors, and that feels good too.  I went riding at Earl's Trails yesterday, since I'm in Amherst for the week, and the predominant thought in my head for two hours was "man, I love my life".  It's true.

Less racing, but more time for friends.  Ian looks guilty about finishing off his chocolate soufflé.

Coaching involves a strength workout on a jungle gym.  Everyone seems to enjoy this one!

We went down to the harbor to watch the Redbull cliff diving competition.  It was pretty nuts, those guys were diving off a 95ft platform, and doing all the twists and flips they do in the olympics.  But from three times higher.  You can see the guy standing on the platform up there on top of the ICA...

They had a jumbotron.

Lots of people - the announcer said 60,000 spectators.  Tons of people on boats out in the water.

We had a weeknight corn maze festival, in Sunderland.  It was super fun, huge thanks to Peter for organizing.  The theme was plaid.  Or just goofy.  Barb and Izzy had a good thing going.

The Italians (Giovanni, Giacomo, and Camilla) went with the straw hat approach.

Team giggles just giggled.  This is Ali's last week in the east before moving to Ohio, so it was a bittersweet party.

Mass start.  I had an unfortunate head-on run-in with Ian near one of the controls.  He won.  I bounced off into the corn, and his path was unperturbed.  But the orienteering was much fun!  

The back of the mass start.

Hey Ed! I beat you =)