Meramec Orienteering 2016

So, after throwing way back last Saturday, this week's off day throwback race report is to... last Saturday.

Run February 13, 2016.

There are maps you compete on and maps you own. I own Meramec. I'm not entirely sure why, but I do. The confluence of very physical running, large feature navigation, with just enough penalty for error seems to line up pretty much perfectly with what I bring to an orienteering competition. I've been beat here, but not often.

So, even though the temperature was in the teens and my fitness was off and I hadn't done much navigation training lately, I still happily drove the hour out to Meramec to see what sort of course Gary Thompson had put together for this year's meet.

Turns out, a pretty good one (not that I was surprised by that). Meramec doesn't offer much in the way of detailed navigation, so what you want to test here is the ability to simplify legs and make good route choices (and, having done that, run your ass off). Gary has fully embraced that and put together an itinerary that offers many over versus around decisions.

It's super frosty at the start, but a short jog up on the road up the hill parallel to #1 does a good job of getting me warmed up. I decide to go with my crappy plate compass because I'm afraid my nice thumb compass will constrict bloodflow to the thumb and turn my left hand into a block of ice by the end of the meet. I figure that Meramec has enough big feature detail that the compass won't get much use. (Astute readers will have already detected the foreshadowing).

The rest of the report will probably make more sense if you pull up a copy of the map in another window.

1: It's pretty obvious that one wants to run the road to the day use parking area. After that, the choice is high or low. I choose high, cutting through the field heading straight for the control. This turns out to be a big win as there is a deer track through the high grass and the woods have recently been burned so they are full speed. I spot the control from a good 50m away. I usually carry my punchcard loose, but I knew I'd drop it with my fingers numb in these conditions. So, I put it inside my map case. Despite the warmup, my hands aren't working too well. I have to put the punch card on my thigh and hit the punch with my fist to get the pins to penetrate my map case.

2: This is my first opportunity to get myself warm and I charge up the hill hard. I then drop down to the trail, using the bend after the cave as an easy attack point to 2. My hands are doing better, but I still resort to the fist punch method.

3: I pick up the trail again to where it crosses the stream and then again jam it up the hill to try to generate some heat. The reentrant midway looks a lot bigger than I expected, but I'm sure it's right. I nick the very top thinking how nice it is to know exactly where you are half way through a long leg taken at full speed. Dropping over the ridge gives lots of opportunities for parallel errors, so I take care to drift right and check off the top of the reentrant east of the control (A). From there, it's an easy attack to the control.

4: I didn't even see the route to the left staying high. I wouldn't have taken it even if I had. The redline route has a great handrail with the big reentrant leading you right up to the saddle, so the only reason to go around is that you don't have the legs. For the moment, my legs are doing fine so I charge right at it.

5: I don't think my route was terrible on this one but, in retrospect, going one spur to the west (B) and then descending was the better choice. My route crosses a lot of little reentrants which, like just about everything at Meramec, are strewn with small rocks. Once low, finding the right spot to turn up is trivial since the road intersection points right at it. I am a little put out by how high the control is placed. It's not wrong, I just misread the number of contours. It's a bit of a grind back up to it and I'm plenty warm enough now that I don't need to be finding ways to generate more heat.

6: I'd call this little leg trivial except that I passed two people here who obviously felt differently. Not sure what was hard about it. Run the stream until you see the rocks.

7: Not much to this one either. Aside from being just a hair left (which meant I had to climb a couple extra lines crossing the spur midway), it was a pretty straightforward leg.

8: Well all good things come to an end. Seven spikes in a row is about as long a streak as I can keep going. The exit from 7 is easy and there's no problem picking up the reentrant to the hilltop after crossing the road. I did entertain the idea of taking the road around. If I had, I would have finished about 5 minutes quicker because at the top I mistake the saddle to the south for the one I really want (C). It's almost impossible to do that if approaching from the north. Right turn into the wrong reentrant system, which doesn't look at all right but, I've been misreading the size of reentrants all day, so it's not until I'm sure I've gone too far that I consider what might have gone wrong. I check my compass, which clearly indicates that the whole system is pointed the wrong way but, it's a crappy compass, so I look around some more to make sure and then decide that I have, in fact, blown it. Back to the saddle and straight into the control, but it's a pretty big boom.

9: Fortunately, the opening 500m of the next leg are easy running down a very broad spur. That lets me regain my composure and get my head back in the game without giving away any more time. I consider taking the trail along the stream and then attacking straight up the ridge. Safe, but slow. I'll never be able to run up that pitch this late in the race. By taking the more direct route up the spur, I can keep moving quickly. I stay just a little low so I can use the top of the reentrant as an attack point.

10: Even if the entire rest of the course was there merely to set up this leg, it would have been worth it. This is a truly great route choice leg. Down to the stream and take the trail? Up to the ridgetop? Or contour just below the ridgetop? I choose the third and I'm pretty sure it was right, though I'd have to time the other two to be positive. The problem with all three choices is that there's no good attack point. This is where knowing your mapper can help. One could forgive a mapper for deciding that either the entire Meramec map should be mapped as rocky ground or just don't bother and consider it a default condition. However, Plamen has a very well defined standard for what rock features he maps. And, since I've run on many of his maps, I know what that standard is (basically, rocky ground is mapped when it goes from something that can sprain you ankle to something that can break your ankle). Sure enough, the little patch of rocky ground 200m west of the control (D) is easy to identify and I contour in. I even score some ego points (like I need those) when another orienteer wandering the other direction asks if I've just punched 10 and I say, "No, 75 more meters" and it turns out to be almost exactly that. (Yes, I know, you shouldn't answer that question, but this is a SLOC meet, not National Championships).

11: I contour over towards 11 frantically trying to find a decent attack point. None presents itself. I decide to stay on the same contour as 10, figuring it will be easier to spot the bag looking up the hill. Indeed, with great relief, I spot it from about 50m away and turn up the hill.

12: The technical part is done (I'm not likely to miss a highway overpass), but there's still the issue of getting there. I take a pretty straight line, which goes through some fairly nasty woods and crazy loose footing, not to mention the rockface which, while correctly mapped as crossable, does require scrambling. I don't think the powerline to the right or the fields to the left were any better.

I sprint in for a finish time of 79 minutes. Ten minutes per K is a bit slower than I'd like at Meramec, but I'm really pretty pleased with the effort. All but one leg was run just as I had planned and the damage on the boom was pretty well controlled. It nets first overall which is never a bad thing. The conditions and my current training would probably not have produced a good result anywhere else but, I own this map.