Flying Pig XI

March 16-18, 2007

The Flying Pig is a more or less annual affair for me. The meet is always well organized and the courses are typically quite good. While it doesn't draw quite the field that some of the big East Coast orienteering meets bring in, there's always enough quality in the field to get a good sense of where you stand. This year, I decided it was time to be humbled and signed up on Blue (Elite) rather than run my age group class on Red. David Frei traveled with me, making the journey to Cincinnati a lot more enjoyable. We haven't been going to meets together much lately, so we had plenty to catch up on.

The first event is a middle distance course Friday afternoon. The venue is Miami Whitewater Park, which is probably the park I know best outside of the local woods of St. Louis. I've done three A-meets and two BillyPigs in these woods. The hills are steep in spots, but not particularly large. The woods are relatively open by Cincinnati standards with not too many thorny areas. Unlike St. Louis, where the hillsides are buttressed by a limestone foundation, the hills here appear to be just big mounds of dirt. The result is a very intricate erosion pattern. At first glance, the maps don't look that different from what we run on all the time, but the orienteering can be a lot more technical.

The weather is chilly, about 40 degrees, but it's also sunny and not too windy so it's quite comfortable for running. The course wastes no time getting into the technical stuff. I take it easy to the first control and hit it cleanly. After the next few, the course changes character and there are some longer legs that focus on running. I run these legs well, posting some of the better splits. I notice that the tail end of the course is back in the tricky stuff and plan to slow down there. Unfortunately, I mess up before I get there. A bad parallel error on #10 spoils an otherwise solid run when I mistake which field I'm going through and actually hit #11 before I realize what's gone wrong. I also make a couple smaller errors in the technical section.

I wind up in the middle of the Blue field, which is better than I expect given the mistakes made. I haven't raced against these guys in several years, so I wasn't really sure how I'd stack up. David turns in a strong run on the Red course, winning his age group (M40+).

Saturday event is a combined-time sprint. The first sprint is at French Park. Although this is a city park, the terrain is more like a typical woods meet. Most of the course is short, moderately technical woods legs. The last few controls are very fast in open fields. I run well, except for a disastrous error on #4 when I miss the fact that I'm too far left and run a good 200m before realizing that I won't be crossing a second trail. That sort of mistake pretty much destroys any hope of doing well in a sprint. I do manage to keep my head in the game and run the rest of the course well enough to beat a few folks, but I'm way off the lead. David is still running his age group (finishing 3rd), but Red and Blue are combined on the sprints courses, so we can compare times afterwards. I'd rather not; he's dealt me a thumping.

The second sprint is at Burnett Woods. This little park on the University of Cincinnati campus is closer to what one expects in an urban sprint, but there's still a fair bit of woods. I'm a bit gun shy after the morning's debacle, so I start out slowly. After a small error on #3, I'm caught by Maricel Olaru of Chicago (and formerly of the Romanian national team) who started a minute behind me. I consider latching on to him, but decide I should run my own race. Having someone his speed nearby does spur me into pushing a bit harder and I run the rest of the course at a significantly faster pace. I'm actually ahead of him into most of the controls, but a mistake at 12 gives him the lead for good.

I'm much happier with my run even though it doesn't move me up any on the combined result. David is a bit slower, but it seems the M40+ field had a more trouble with this course; he moves into second on combined time. With two age group medals collected, David decides to switch courses and run Blue with the big boys on Sunday.

The Sunday event is the one we've been waiting for: 12.3K and lots of climb in Miami Whitewater. For the third day in a row, we have sunny skies and cool temps, so it seems reasonable to expect some pretty fast times.

As with Friday, the course setter hits us with the technical stuff right off the bat. I decide to take it really easy since an early boom will spoil the rest of the course. I'm clean, albeit a bit slow through the first three controls. David take the opposite approach and pays for it with a 1-minute error on the first control. He quickly gets his game back together and runs the next few legs well.

The section from 4-12 presents some dangers, but there are enough big features that turning up the speed seems appropriate. My approaches to 4 and 10 could be better, but this is a pretty strong section for me.

The leg to 13 is a bit strange. I guess the idea is that you're supposed to choose between the trail and the power line. This is a decision that matters, but the answer seems fairly obvious to me. I throw it into overdrive and blast along the power line for all I'm worth. Since the approach to 13 is going to be exactly the same as 7, I don't see much need for caution. David chooses the trail and pays dearly, losing two and a half minutes on the leg.

Then comes the big leg to 16. At 3.2K, I'm pretty sure this is the longest leg I've encountered in an orienteering meet. Counting all the micro-choices, you could probably come up with 40 or 50 unique routes for this leg. The big decisions are whether to run the road on the first half and when to head west for the approach. Given the amount of road training I've done lately, I probably would have done best to take the road, but I feel like I'm in a groove moving through the forest, so I take the more direct route instead. David goes to the road and our splits were pretty close, so maybe it didn't matter much. Most runners decide to stay on the ridge right of the line all the way to the start triangle (some even go all the way through the finish area), but I cut over sooner, figuring a look at the terrain around #19 might let me run that leg a bit faster later on.

In another good bit of course setting, controls 16-18 are back in the technical stuff. This change of pace from the long leg is a sure invite to disaster. I give up some time forcing myself to slow down and read the map carefully rather than risk messing up what is increasingly looking like a really good run.

The rest of the course is easy (since I've already seen 19, I run that leg at full speed). Heading up to the Go control, I finally indulge my desire to look at my watch. I'm stunned to see it reading 1:32. I'm so surprised by the time, I have to wonder if it didn't get stopped when I was pushing through some of the thicker stuff. Just in case it's true, I get on the gas the best I can for the run in, but my legs are toast. At the epunch download, my happiness is confirmed: 1:33:33. By far my best performance on a Blue course and it lands me in 5th place. David comes in a few minutes later to take 8th in 1:39:17.

Posting such strong runs has us both in a pretty good mood for the drive back to St. Louis. It's great to be back mixing it up with the top guys, but it's also pretty sobering. While 2nd-4th place were only a few minutes ahead of me, Will Hawkins turns in an astonishing 76:30 for the win. I couldn't run the course that fast if somebody put out streamers all the way around the course. Seems like more terrain speed workouts are in order.