Occassional thoughts about orienteering
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| okansas.blogspot.com Occassional thoughts about orienteering |
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Wednesday, December 03, 2003 This weekend's raceAfter writing about planning ahead, I should spend some time planning for Sunday's "Possum Trot."Take a look at a scan of the map with a course from last March. The terrain is relatively hilly with lots of roads and trails. The hills are "loess." The green can be unpleasant. Skip strategy The Trot is a mass start race with a special rule -- you can skip any two controls. It is worth thinking about a strategy for skipping controls. The course setter, Mike Shifman, usually designs the course so that the skips aren't obvious. You should be able to narrow the options down to a few controls without much trouble. My usual strategy is to save the skips for when I'm tired. All things being equal, I'll skip controls in the second half of the course. I also like to use the skips to save climb or rough terrain (ideally I'd save distance, climb, rough terrain and a tricky control). Weather This time of year the weather could be nice and dry or cold and wet. Last night we got about an inch of slushy snow. But, last Sunday was warm and sunny. If the weather is wet, the loess soil can be slick. If it is slick, getting up the steep hills will be much more difficult, both slower and more energy consuming. Cold weather also feels draining. Maybe you work harder to stay warm and burn more calories? Small map The mapped area is fairly small and the course will probably be 15-16 km. I expect the course will be made up of legs about 400-600 meters with most of the legs similar length (that's one of the ways the course setter can make it harder to pick the controls to skip). Because of the hills and areas of thick forest, a short leg can offer some route choice. Look at the leg from 9-10 on the map from March. I compared split times with people who went straight and it looks like my route was even with those who went straight. Rain or shine, good strategy or bad, the Trot is always a fun race. posted by Michael | 1:26 PM 
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