Greenbelt - Feb 12, 2012

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It was cold, cold, cold today at Greenbelt. Winter finally arrived with a vengeance. I spent my first 90 minutes helping out with registration. Due to park regulations we are unable to accept payments in the park. Most people pre-registered. Those that didn’t were directed across the street from the park to the parking lot of Capitol Cadillac. That’s where I and a few other volunteers were stationed. People drove up in their cars and we registered them. It is unclear to me why we couldn’t run this operation from a vehicle. We had to stand out in the cold, and it was bitterly cold.

When I was finally relieved I headed back over to the park. I first used the bathroom where I discovered just how cold my hands were. I didn’t have any gloves. I had been keeping them in my pockets but they were still a bit numb. After using the facilities I got the zipper on my pants up and fastened the buckle but I couldn’t get my pants to snap back up.

Jon offered to loan me a pair of gloves but I turned down his offer. I felt that I could manage without and for the most part I was right. For a while my hands didn’t feel cold at all, but looking back now I have to wonder if they were just numb at the time.

The course itself wasn’t terribly difficult. None of the controls gave me any trouble. I got lucky in a couple cases but for the most part my familiarty with the park, the lack of foliage and the placement of some of the controls meant that I didn’t experience much in the way of frustration.

I think I broke my compass today. Just after finding the 13th control I noticed that there was an air bubble in my compass. I hadn’t noticed it before. I think the casing must have cracked and let that it. I fell a couple times today but didn’t think I landed hard enough to break it. I’ve had that compass for about 6 years, so I feel like I got my money’s worth out of it.

I used a garmin today. I remembered to start it at the right time but I forgot to stop it after I finished. I was about to drive off when I realized that I was still wearing it and that it was still running. It had been about 30 minutes since I finished the course at that point.

On the way home I stopped at REI. I bought a pair of gloves. Maybe I should have bought a second pair: one pair for orienteering and another pair for day-to-day use. I wanted to buy a thumb compass but they didn’t have any. I guess I will need to shop online for one of those. I wore the gloves home even though it was warm enough in my car that I really didn’t need them.

Course: Blue [15 controls; 8.1 km; 230 m]
Time: 2:34:08 - WinSplits - RouteGadget

Greenbelt - Jan 23, 2011

Course: Blue [8.2 km; 220m; 19 controls]
Time: 2:27:28 - winsplits - routegadget


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It was cold at Greenbelt but not quite as cold as it was a couple weeks before at Wheaton. Still, I wore long underwear and didn’t feel too warm wearing it. There was a breeze blowing but it wasn’t blowing very hard and there were lots of places in the park where I didn’t feel it at all.

I walked the blue course, which is a step up for me. It was my first time attempting a blue course. It felt more like a long red than it did a blue. The size of the park probably had something to do with that. I don’t expect that I will be attempting the blue course at all meets from here on out but hopefully some of them.

None of the controls were extremely difficult to find. The 17th control gave me the most trouble and even that one wasn’t impossible to find. It just took a little bit of time for me to reorient myself to the terrain and approach the control from a different direction. There were a few controls that were more or less out in the open, which didn’t seem right to me for a blue course.

The only other thing to slow me down was an elderly couple that stopped me to ask for directions back to the Sweetgum Parking Lot. I tried to direct them using my map. They weren’t too far from the lot. I’m not sure I was entirely successful since the o-map didn’t have the name of roads or trails on it. The husband asked me a couple times if the trail I was suggesting they take was the Azalea Trail. I finally had to tell him I didn’t know because it wasn’t marked as such on my map.

I decided not to use a Garmin 205 gps watch. I thought about it but was still feeling a bit silly about what happened last week with the device. Maybe next time I will.

The best thing to come out of this meet was the prepay addition to the online preregistration. I was able to pay for the meet with my PayPal account. I hope they use this from now on. I hate having to bring cash to pay for the meet. This is a monumental improvement. Of course, now I’m wondering how much it costs the club in fees to have this option available.