September 21, 2011

National Orienteering Day Results

City of Trees Orienteering Club stalwarts celebrated National Orienteering Day September 17. It was just one of our local club meets, but it attracted a surprise competitor. Lauri Leinonen drove from Logan, Utah, hoping for a good challenge. He ran the advanced course, finishing in just a little more than a minute behind our advanced course winner, Sergey Velichko. Lauri is eager to return and asked Sergey to send him our Gold Rush Hills Map, so he can run the 2009 Northwestern Championship course on his own.

Competitors said both the Advanced and Intermediate courses were long and posed interesting route choices. Advanced Control 13 was situated on the east side of the ridge so that after a relatively short climb to a trail it offered a choice between 30 meters of climb and 52 meters of descent over a kilometer versus a mostly downhill (approximately 49 meters) run over 1.1 kilometers. There was also the direct route and variations on a shortcut.






We hoped to attract some newcomers for National Orienteering Day. To that end we offered a 3K instructional course with instructions. We were pleased to have Ben Maillet give it a try. Sadly, we had no other takers. Ben said he enjoyed the course and expects to attend more CTOC meets.

The Morgan boys, Nick and Alex took away honors on the beginner course with a time of 24:53. Liam Murray trailed not far behind at 28:11

Jay Morgan (1:33:20) and the team of Lexy and Bill Leahy (2:11:50) worked their way through the unusually tough intermediate course. It was good to have Bill back with us after an absence due to the demands of his new job.

A close race between Sergey and Lauri punctuated the advanced course competition. It's hard to know how an inaccurately placed Control 12 affected the outcome. No doubt Jeff Black would have turned in a much better time, possibly challenging the leaders, if the meet director had correctly placed the control. Ole Bergset got lost on Control 4, overshooting by a wide margin; he faulted the meet director for failure to place directional signs. Perhaps it's time for the Board of Directors to consider special signs for the benefit of orienteers of advanced age and esteemed status. And then there was David Murray, newly obsessive orienteer, who demonstrated that an orienteer can have more than one obsession. He cut his run short to watch the Cornhuskers beat the Huskies. There must be some cliche--maybe "Boys will be boys" or "Priorities!"
Special thanks to Sergey Velichko for advice and assistance in course preparation and meet administration. After a long evening and an early morning of deploying controls, I am grateful to David Bergset and Jeff Black for their assistance collecting controls.

See you on Saturday, October 22 at Simplot Sports Complex for Vampire-O.
John Murray, Meet Director

September 6, 2011

National Orienteering Day

Welcome to National Orienteering Day!
On Saturday, September 17th, our club is pleased to present the Boise events for National Orienteering Day. This is a great meet to get acquainted with the sport for the first time, or a refresher after a long absence from your compass. Experienced club members will be on hand to help explain the basics. Stewart Gulch, Hillside Park and the area surrounding Hillside Junior High offer a pleasant introduction to orienteering maps without actually being lost!

Meet location: Hillside Junior High, in the parking lot near the northeast corner of the building.
Start times: 11am-1pm - you may arrive within this window to try a course, as participants start separately a few minutes apart.
Things to bring:
1. your trusty compass, or you may rent one from the club for a nominal fee.
2. a signed waiver to save you some time signing up when you get there - but we will have blanks handy.
Cost: Cheap, our usual monthly meet fee for nonmembers: $5 per individual, or $7 for a group sharing a map. Or if you're a club member, it's included!

You can choose a course that's right for you. We have a course for beginners who have never held a compass or thought about maps. This course is suitable for small children and strollers. We have an instructional course for newcomers who want to learn the essential skills to finding their way around new terrain. This course comes with a guide to its use to supplement any instruction you might receive from one of our experienced members. It requires some walking up and down hills, mostly on trails, with some off-trail travel. And, as always, we will have some more challenging courses for our experienced orienteers. Whether new to orienteering or an accomplished competitive navigator, there's a course for you.
See you on September 17!

John Murray