 |
| Advanced Course Control 14 |
We are always favorably impressed when
we see a new young orienteer perform well on a challenging course.
Such was the case when Mikayla Rose led the pack on the Intermediate
Course. Congratulations, Mikayla! Mikayla is one of Ben Brock's crop
of promising orienteers at Riverstone International School where Ben
is the Outdoor Education Director. Ben is a very capable orienteer
in his own right. From what we see of Ben's students it appears he's
effectively passing on skills.
We appreciate Mikayla's performance
along with all of the others on the Intermediate Course all the more
when we appraise its difficulty. The course was designed to afford
orienteers the maximum opportunity to exercise their navigation
skills in series of re-entrants, some of which are very subtle. We
see similar terrain in the spring and summer meets, but it is a rare
treat to navigate in the hills during the months of rain and snow. For
this pleasure and privilege we owe our gratitude to Lance and Robyn
Teel, owners of all of the property on which the Intermediate Course
was set.
It's always our pleasure to see the
Morgan family with Nikolai and Alexsi bounding into the finish line.
One day in the not too distant future we expect to see Dad tuckered
out, but proudly trailing behind.
Dan and Ashley Abel come to us as
adventure racers. Dan has been the secondary navigator on his team,
but now with the retirement of the primary navigator wants to improve
his skills. The Abel team proved to be able indeed as they logged a
time competitive with some of our strong and experienced regulars on
the Intermediate Course.
We've been seeing more of Jerry Stewart
lately. He and Steve Fransen joined forces to tackle the Intermediate
Course. Both orienteers reported into the finish with smiles and
evident satisfaction. We hope to see more of you guys as the year
progresses.
There is a list of reasons to explain why an
orienteer can take a long time on a course, among them being lost, sustaining an
injury, avoiding bears and anything else you might imagine. For Holly
and Megan Peters the explanation was determination to find as many of those
controls as they could. Holly and Megan took a quantum leap
from their month earlier success on the Beginner's Course at Julia
Davis Park to this Intermediate Course. And they did it without their
partner of last month, Mark Holman. As stated above the course
qualified as intermediate because of its length, not its navigation
difficulty. They found most of the controls and now know a lot more
about orienteering. We know they could have returned to the finish
much earlier. Holly and Megan, especially, were having fun.
If there's one thing we share almost
universally as orienteers, it's humility. A few moments of triumph
might momentarily push humility behind a veil of pride. A thin and
fragile veil it is. And that is the theme of the commentary on the
Advanced Course.
Of the total of 28 controls only three
were off the Teel property. And on those three controls not only hung
a punch, but also a tale of hubris. Ever mindful of the
worthy opinions and honorable desires of fellow orienteers at whose
pleasure he serves, the course setter lengthened a course that
already had an elevation loss and gain of 633 meters. That's greater than the gain
experienced by Robie runners when they top out at Aldape Summit. Some
consolation might have been mistakenly found in the shorter
distance—8K versus 8 miles. The proud among the petitioners requesting
more physical challenge dismissed the evident aggravating factors of
navigation and terrain even after we regrettably informed them that
provision of a motorcycle escort and aid stations lay beyond our
powers. Men and women were on their own out there. We are pleased to
report that all returned safely.
 |
| Advanced Course Elevation Profile Before Added Length |
As for pride, read on and judge for
yourself. There lingers a suspicion that any pride was seasoned
either with a little humility or a dose of delusion. Michael Bading
reported that his GPS recorded a course of 8 miles, not 8K. Reflection on
the 60% difference brought to mind a man walking a dog on a leash.
The man walks in a direct line across a city park. The dog, though
restrained by the length of the leash, travels by his own agenda,
sniffing a tree here and straining toward a squirrel there. We submit
that, with the exception of the exceptional, as orienteers we are more like the
dogs and not dog-walkers.
And Jeff Black, whose optimism is
tempered by experience offered a caveat ( “
I'm
game for any of the options, all will expose my weak spots I expect.”), reported entering
a time-space continuum at The Slump. Those of you who have never
transited this slice of misplaced terrain have missed an exquisite
jumble of basalt boulders and crumpled earth. That it might distort
the dimensions of cognition does not surprise us. We would counsel
Jeff that it has nothing to do with relativistic physics, but is very
much a Newtonian reality, to wit, with position as a function of time
all of those obstacles can deviate your vector and hold your first derivative in check. It's
dx/dt, not E=mc2.
(We really never were very good at calculus and we only know of gravity enough to keep our feet on the ground, so we confess to having plagiarized and adapted in our effort to
communicate with Jeff on his elevated plane.)
Bill Leahy
offered no such caveat. He did note that our early start compelled
him to choose between his two hour Saturday morning basketball game
and our little orienteering meet. And Bill finished strong enough to
claim the second fastest time on the course and the honor of first
place. More about second and first a little later. Bill did say he
felt strong enough to go back out and run the Intermediate Course, but would choose
not to in light of the blisters he had acquired. We commend Bill to
Proverbs with our minor amendment: “When pride cometh, then cometh
blisters:
but with the lowly is wisdom”. We will take credit for any wisdom
that he might derive from Saturday morning's experience. And we offer
advice to any subsequent meet directors to whom Bill's welfare is entrusted:
Arrange for him to start early at Saturday meets.
We need look no
further than the first re-entrant control to be reminded of the basis
for our own humility. It was there that the first orienteer out of
the gate found a post without a control bag attached. Fortunately,
Melanie Schuster consented to carry the delinquent bag and set it for
us. Thank you Melanie for relieving us of the torrent of derision
that otherwise would have come our way.
We have nary a
word for Greg Davidson, who performed well
and left happy. We too were happy that you came and were pleased.
You will observe a new participant
category in the results table. Sergey has long been in a category of his own. For reasons
spanning our long association with him and more particularly these
two most recent meets we have created a new category. In the January
meet report Jeff wrote about Sergey taking a control out of order,
“By conventional orienteering rules this is a DQ and so he has
been marked as such.” Sometimes justice is harsh. As harsh as Jeff
and Dondi were, we honor their fidelity to the rules and so approve
their decision. Sadly, we too have reached a similar judgment. At
the start all orienteers were directed to follow the fence beyond the
recently seeded lot. Sergey alone disregarded these instructions giving
himself an unfair advantage and undermining directors' authority. Be
assured that we were motivated in our decision not by the affront to
our authority, but by our ethical responsibility. Although we
followed Jeff and Dondi's precedent (Thank you, Jeff and Dondi for
your courage in showing us the path of righteousness.), we believe
that Sergey's performance must be viewed from a broader perspective.
Hence, a category for Sergey alone, probably alone in perpetuity, to
honor speed, efficiency and expedience. We know Sergey not as the
dog, but as the dog-walker. Indeed, Jeff, who kindly supplied us with
photographs for this report, was unable to capture Sergey's image
because he was moving too fast. We do have one reservation as an
anonymous source proffered us with a dubious report of Sergey walking.
Sergey, the DQ is
tough love because we love you. We duly noted that you brought
Braunschweiger and crackers in a vain effort to compensate for the
lost culinary inspiration of our departed and profoundly missed Russ
Pilcher. (Some O club in Arizona is lucky beyond its wildest dreams
and a little fatter.) Let it be known that in the case of one of
our directors Braunschweiger is mitigation, not to be confused with
a bribe, resulting in the establishment of Sergey's new special category.
Sunday, March 16 Karin Didisse directs
our next meet at Ann Morrison Park.
Directors
David Murray
John Murray
