okansas.blogspot.com Occassional thoughts about orienteering
Thursday, October 18, 2007
Chicago
I'm running an A-meet in Chicago this weekend.
I'm in lousy shape and my technique is rusty. But, it should be fun.
I spent a few minutes looking at some maps from Chicago and thinking about the last few races I ran there. Chicago has a reputation for having thick vegetation. But my memories of the forests in Chicago aren't so bad. The terrain is fairly flat with a few short climbs, but nothing especially daunting.
It looks to me like the trickiest type of legs are going to be (a) legs that end in a bingo control (and the terrain and forest offer ample opportunities for bingo controls), and (b) route choice decisions that you have to make without having a good understanding of the runability of the forest. For example, you might face a long leg with options of going straight through a mix of various shades of green versus taking a trail route that avoids the green. Without being familiar with the specific way of mapping vegetation, that's the type of decision it is tricky to make.