Race HQ was back at Municipal Park, but I changed up the form factor to be horizontal rather than vertical, which opened up some new "terrain" to the east. Variety is good. As it turned out, the NE corner was very good...
 |
| The Challenge Orienteers of 2015. |
Controls as usual were worth variable points, with controls numbered under 20 being worth 10 points, 20-29 worth 20 points, and so forth. A 50 pointer was placed in the center to make it a bit more tactical for anyone going for only the big ones in a large loop. And it's a cool spot worth seeing. (It was the most visited 50 point control!)
 |
| Blasting off at the start. Jay and Bill are all out on the right. |
 |
| Innes and Katrina display the benefits of a tandem ride! Nav in the back. |
Dondi and I made a subtle but important tweak to the rules. Rather than -10 points for guessing it would be an outright DQ. In our view the intention was to orienteer and visit controls rather than play poker for guessing points. While this was printed out in a display stand (after maps were distributed), the map text was not updated and not everyone was up to speed (since I am such a loud vocal announcer while everyone is busy studying the map). For those who made a guess unknowingly the old rule applied.
As is often the case with this particular meet, there were a couple disputed or confusing controls. The worst one by far was #41. Your faithful meet director misplaced it south by 2 blocks, and the map printing also cut off that street (it was really too close to the edge at that point.) Many figured it out, some did not, but the points were given for those who made the effort while the time losses were variable and not feasible to adjust. The question for #52 was vague. It was intended to be meaningful if one was standing on the street in the center of the control circle, but some took it to mean a side of the building - and as it turned out the west side of the building also had a similar feature! Everyone who was there did get it eventually. One control nobody missed was #18 - which your meet director forgot to put on the map as translated from a pile of notes and scribbled circles. Hence only a total of 1370 was possible rather than 1380.
 |
| Freak Alley: #53, with colors on the wall and on the bike. |
There were some distinctly positive experiences out there too. The newly exposed NE corner of the map was visited by a majority of orienteers who spoke fondly of their time there. The labyrinth street network complemented by big contours proved alluring to the eye and required the best of brain and legs together. As it turned out Sergey saved it for last and discovered it took longer than he estimated so he could not collect all controls so easily, even on the bike (this is where the meet director smiles knowingly). Mike Bading by contrast bound over the hills first but soon realized he too had no easy way to finish all controls! John Murray lived there for some time and knew more shortcuts than most but admitted he flubbed in his fatigue and had to regain elevation back into Ft. Boise park.
 |
| Greg and Melanie look up for #24. |
Downtown made for a steady draw as expected. One visitor here from Alaska found the entire day to be a fun and interesting way to see the many dimensions of Boise for the first time.
Every control was visited by at least one orienteer!
 |
| Mike Bading and Bill Leahy race away from #45 in Ft. Boise with downtown as backdrop. |
Tabulated results follow. In the foot class John Murray created a category of his own and limited his time to 2 hours and the east half of the map. Jim Byrne won the official 4 hour class by a wide margin, thanks to collecting a higher number of 40 and 50 pointers. Notably Roy and Kirsten also targeted the hills in the NE at their hiking pace and were impressed by the number of books on the course!
Sergey eked out a win in the bike class over reigning champion Mike Bading, but it was mighty close and he was the only one to trade overtime penalties for controls. Their strategy varied too - while Sergey believed he could collect all of them but ran out of time in the high value NE corner, Mike focused on the points and was the only orienteer to collect all the 50's. Doug LaMott took a brutal head over handlebar spill and lost some enthusiasm for the competition after that. Luckily he made it back in one piece!
 |
| Doug LaMott a little worse for the wear. |
 |
| Sergey arrives five minutes overtime having reached for all. |
 |
| Jim Byrne strides into first for the foot class. |
 |
| Mike Bading rides up into the autumn hills for #46. |
More memorable photos on the yahoogroups page here:
Thanks to all who participated! Thank you to Sergey for arranging map printing. Special thanks to my wife and co-director Dondi who reviewed all questions and control photos (saving me many other possible problematic controls), handled all the scoring, and brought some snacks to refuel the depleted orienteers. She even manned the fort while I did an hour loop to catch some photos of the action.
TBD if we have a meet in December. We may take a month off, or Ben Brock from Riverstone may provide a bonus meet as a holiday surprise! You better be good.
No comments:
Post a Comment