Picking up the Controls

Go with the FLO – Florida Orienteering A-meet

Some time things don’t go as planned and some times you are simply better off not planning. The weekend of Feb 24-26 had all the great makings of an orienteering weekend, but as things turned out the first two days were not to be. Work forced me to miss the Friday Sprint orienteering meet. Then for Saturday, the x-country coach at my daughters school had a baby (well his wife did all the work), and I was next in line to coach the x-country kids through the event that Saturday morning. I love coaching x-country, and very few things are as rewarding as seeing the kids on your team do a great job running. Of course most x-country meets start at 8:30 AM and are complete by 10 AM, however Bear Lake (the site of this race) runs its meets a bit slow. Well not a bit – a lot. It was around noon when I finally finished up the awards ceremony and was out of the meet and heading to Ocala it was after 12 PM and I had not only missed my start time for my race, I had even missed all the start times. Also I had the T-shirts in the car for the other competitors, so others were pretty anxious for me to show up.

When I finally did make it out to Ocala – most of the A-meet competitors had left and the course planners were planning on picking up the controls. I sold a few shirts and then ran to the finish line where I was able to get a blue map, and then jogged to the start. Since it was pretty much over – I set my watch and set out on the course. After the first two controls which were still in the woods, the remainder of he controls had been pulled. It was pretty easy to tell the locations as all controls were on distinct features. I did spend some time making sure my locations were correct (simply using multiple attack points to verify). An hour later I was done and helped pack everything up and headed home. The next day was going to be the real excitement.

I left early the next day with Dave Brault (an AR buddy) and was planning on running the blue course, resting, and then picking up all the controls with a group of adventure racers. All went as planned and I actually arrived at the start line just as they called my name. Well so much for preparation – I threw on my camelback, pulled out my compass and started on the blue course. I really liked the electronic punch ability (and liked it even more at the finish when I got a paper with my splits). The blue course was long – real long and I got to see some of the elite orienteers, mostly as the passed me on the course. I had no difficulty in finding the controls – but I simply did not have the amazing foot speed of the elite runners. There sub 6 mile pace was pretty amazing in the woods as I spent 2 hrs and 45 minutes completing the course at my 8+ min/mile pace.

After a lunch I was ready to head out with my group of Adventurer racers (Jamie Sheriff and her dad, Dave Brault, Jeff Hunker, and Greg). We did not have a master control map – so we set about using all the maps we had to create one. We were hoping the course director would be dropping off a legitimate master map – but I was not betting on anything. Plus we had multiple groups going out to pick up separate sections and we needed enough maps for all groups. In addition the red and blue courses had controls that were a long way off.

After creating a few “supposed” master maps from our map supply we got together – set up a plan and sent Dave and Greg in one direction. After they left we figured it would be faster to drive to another location and have Jamie meet us at different locations in her car as we picked up controls. All except for Jeff – whom we sent off to the far reaches of the forest with the promise we would pick him up later at a location we agreed upon.

Well – there were lots of controls (56) and only a few of us. After about 3 hours of picking up controls we still had quite a few to go and they were all quite a ways off. We did have the full control pickup team (Dave, Greg, Ron, Jamie and her Dad – all crammed into Jamies car). It was a blast using a orienteering map to auto navigate the jeep trails of the Ocala National Forest. We would send one person out as we approached each control and then meet up with them down the road. Unfortunately with all the controls and water we picked up – the car was getting more full. Eventually as it got dark we were down to our last controls and we met up with Jeff. And luckily Jeff had brought real adventure racing lights with him as it was now dark. We added Jeff to the group crammed in Jamies car.

For the last little bit it was dark, but we successfully found all the controls (that we had mapped). We arrived at the check-in to find Jerry Sirmans faithfully guarding the T-shirts as everyone else had left. He had been there guarding them for over 3 hours !

It turned out to be quite an adventure – I ended up getting about 6+ hours of running in, and a lot of navigation practice. Of course it was after 8 PM and none of us had eaten. Both Dave and I explained the situation to our wives – who happened to be together at Steak and Shake eating dinner with the kids (I have 2 daughters, Dave has 5).

As always – a simple trip turns into an adventure – but I cannot complain having spent an entire day in the woods. Orienteering at that !