Sunday, June 3, 2012

Jug Bay Beer Chase - Jun 3, 2012


View Dave Goes Orienteering 2011-12 in a larger map

The weather was warm but not too warm or too humid for the 2012 Beer Chase.

I forgot to bring my boots so I orienteered in the old pair of walking shoes that I put on that morning. I got my feet a little wet and muddy but not excessively so. The wetlands were not as wet as they often are.

For the most part I did fairly well when it came to finding controls. I made a few mistakes. When leaving the first control in the first loop I made a 45 degree error. I headed ESE when I should have headed ENE. I realized my mistake when I spotted a field that should not have been there. The problem wasn't that I set my compass wrong just that I didn't take notice of how I had the map oriented in my hand.

While searching for the 2nd control on the 2nd Loop I arrived at a control that was on the 3rd loop. Forgetting that I had the map for the 3rd loop on the flip side of the 2nd loop map I took a guess as to where I was and headed off in the wrong direction. It wasn't until after I spent 5 minutes searching for the control unsuccessfully that it occurred toe to flip the map over. After that I found the control fairly quickly.

I overshot the 1st control of the 3rd loop. It was much closer to the field I was coming from than I thought it would be. Also the stream bed on the map where the control was supposed to be was more or less non-existent in reality. So I kept walking east until I found a stream bed, the wrong stream bed. I searched along it for a few minutes without finding the control. After studying the map again it became clear to me that I was searching the wrong stream bed. I headed west and found the control fairly quickly.

I felt pretty good about my performance at the chase but I still finished next to last in my group, not counting MPs and DNFs. I guess the more things change the more they remain the same. I managed to finish ahead of 2 or 3 people who opted to do the short course.

Loop: 1 [6 controls; 2.8 km 85 m]
Time: 47:12

Loop: 2 [5 controls; 1.9 km; 30m]
Time: 38:06

Loop: 3 [5 controls; 1.7 km, 20m]
Time: 30:45

WinSplits - RouteGadget

Photos: Jug Bay 2012