KC Day/Night

April 14, 2007

In general, the mind has a way of letting unpleasant memories fade while holding on to the good stuff. So it was with a happy heart that I woke Saturday morning to drive to the Kansas City Day/Night orienteering meet put on by the Possum Trot Orienteering Club (PTOC). I remember winning the night event two years ago. I seem to have forgotten the fact that I was emptying my insides every fifteen minutes for the final three hours of that same race. Unlike that year, I'll be doing the night event solo this go round, so I won't have David Frei to pull me through any troubles. With that in mind I vow to take better care of myself in the short rest between the two events.

This year's venue is Knob Noster State Park. It's the nicest area on the KC side of the state. I'd put it on par with some of our better St. Louis maps, although not as good as Hawn or S-F. Some rather unseasonable weather has left a light coat of snow on the ground, although early morning rains are quickly washing it away. The ground is quite soft and the streams are flooding. I'm not worried about being cold and wet during the day, but it might be a factor at night. Fortunately, I've brought some warm clothes.

The day event is a blast, literally. Held completely on the east side of the map where the woods are wide open and the climb is minimal, it's a track meet. Aside from a few deep crossings, there's nothing to slow you down. I sweep the 2-hour course in 69:02 (7:25/Km) to win ahead of Michael Eglinski.

So far, so good, but this is where things started going wrong last time. I promise myself I won't be so foolish with my eating and sleeping this time. I join Michael and his wife, Mary Jones, for lunch in nearby Warrensburg. I choose a grilled vegetable salad (which turns out to be quite tasty) figuring that won't likely upset my stomach any. After they head back to KC (they are skipping the night event), I head back to the park to get some sleep. On the way I'm distracted by a local winery and stop in for a taste. I still manage to get back in time to sleep for a few hours before night registration starts at 8 PM.

Maps are distributed shortly before 9 giving us an hour to plan our routes. As I expected, there should be no problem getting all the controls in 8 hours, but finding the optimal route still takes some time. I don't finalize my route until 9:50 which gives me almost enough time to visit the restrooms again and get my gear on. I'm still fiddling with stuff when course-setter Mike Shiffman says "go!" and am still standing at the start for about a minute after the start. No harm done, I know better than to rush off at the start of a long event.

Once I do start running, it becomes painfully clear that the night event will not be the same experience as the day. For one thing, I'm wearing my trail shoes rather than spikes. While this greatly decreases the likelihood of blisters, it has me slipping badly on the muddy ground. My route crosses almost immediately over to the west side of the map where the second nasty surprise awaits: the woods on this side are loaded with thorns.

Trying to push through the terrain results in a series of errors. I boom 4 out of 5 controls in the stretch between #50 and #40. The error at 40 is particularly maddening since I hit my attack point (fence corner) cleanly and then missed left because I didn't want to stay up on the spur where the thorns were thicker. None of the booms are particularly costly by night standards, but if I keep giving away 2-3 minutes per control, it's going to add up to a couple hours worth of errors. I take a deep breath and decide to back off a bit.

Moving slower through the thorns doesn't make them any more pleasant, but at least I'm able to hold a decent bearing. Things go better as I carve a big arc around the western edge of the map. Minor booms at 51 and 53 are corrected quickly. As I get to the southwest quadrant the thorns are augmented by tremendous quantities of mud. In places it feels like my shoes are about to be sucked off. Fortunately, I went with double knots rather than taping my laces so I'm able to retie them tighter.

The last control of any consequence on the west side is 27. I've been dreading this one for a while. The control location itself is easy enough, but trying to find the patch of open woods that gets through the thick stuff at night will be non-trivial. I've been so torn up by the thorns in the white woods, I certainly have no desire to go through medium green. Then I catch my first really big break of the night: right where I hit the thick stuff, there's a rather substantial deer track heading straight through. I know it's a risk, but it seems like one worth taking. The gamble pays off big time as the track goes all the way through in a reasonably direct path. The west side is done! It took nearly five hours when I thought it would be closer to four, but I'm pretty happy with my progress given the conditions.

Back on the east side (map), I expect to get moving again. Indeed, I do move faster, but it seems the fatigue has caught up with my brain. The final 90 minutes are some of the sloppiest orienteering I've done in quite some time. Fortunately, the high visibility makes corrections pretty easy and I don't lose too much time. That is, until the penultimate control which I completely hose up, losing close to 5 minutes because I start daydreaming (nightdreaming?) and run right past my exit point from the trail. While boneheaded, at least it leaves me with a pretty good attack following the contour off the powerline and I find the control without any difficultly. Realizing that my head is clearly out of it, I take an ultra-safe route to the final control and then run in to finish at 4:48 AM.

While I'm not terribly shocked to be the first to sweep (most of the Midwest's good night navigators were at the Planet Adventure race), I'm a bit surprised that nobody else pulls it off as well. Gary Thompson and Ken Debeer come closest, dropping just a few low-pointers and finishing just before the 6 AM cutoff.

PTOC serves up a hearty breakfast which pretty much coincides with the sun coming up. Figuring the danger has passed, I indulge in a few cookies along with some more stable food. After a couple hours of socializing, I decide to head home. On the way I get hit with the biggest terrain surprise of the weekend. The road I drove in on is now underwater and I have to go several miles out of my way to find another way to the interstate.

The strategy of avoiding anything sweet or starchy between the events has paid off well. I had no trouble with my stomach all night. In fact, aside from being torn up from the thorns, I came through this one in pretty good shape. I'm sure by next year I will only remember the upside.