Competing In An Extreme Urban Adventure

It’s quite an effort

Regular readers will know that I’m fond of getting out in nature – what’s not to love?

And if given half a chance to run through the woods with a map in hand, I’ll jump.

But I haven’t gone for any of those long, marathon, or ultra-long events – until yesterday.

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The Rochester Map Adventure

This event was thought up with the concept of an “extreme” event, and these extremes seem to be rather in fashion these days.

The Rochester area in general has some great city, county, and state parks available, and the Rochester Orienteering Club has mapped most of them – including several within or next to the city. In one of the club planning sessions a couple years back, a suggestion was thrown out: “what if we held an event across all of the city parks?”

It seems that the suggestion needed some time to ripen – about two years…

Big and Inclusive

If you’re going to hold an event across a large swath of any city, you’ve got to have enough time to allow the competitors to make their way through it. At least a half a day – 5 hours in this case. (and because not everyone wants to spend that much time, a 3 hour options is just right for others)

Personal transportation – bike and foot – was the name of the game. No motorized vehicles, ride sharing or watercraft allowed. (Though I bet if someone came in with a bicycle built for two that would have been allowed;-)

One’s, two’s, and more – enter in any combination that you’d like. Groups can be fun, but I entered on my own.

Pursuit of the answer…

In normal orienteering, you know you’re at the right spot when you find the control.

But with sixty some locations scattered around the city and no good way of placing, securing, protecting, and recovering that many flags, the club used an “Answer me this” sort of riddle to prove that competitors reached the locations.

And yes, while you might be able to search for the answer to the first name of Buffalo Bill’s adopted son, you were meant to find that gravestone at the specified location South of a small building at the top of a certain hill within Mount Hope Cemetery.

Each time I read the clue before arriving at the spot I’d say something like “Hmm, object beneath a bench at this intersection, I wonder how I’ll know that that’s it”. Invariably, I’d arrive at the location and find a cute backyard garden with a bench and stone rabbit underneath it.

(And the club took everyone’s word for having arrived at the location – apparently multiple people put multiple dates on a tree next to a certain intersection within one of the parks…)

Other example answers include the fact that Dave loves Amy (which was on a different tree), Frank Gannet’s tombstone has a picture of a newspaper delivery boy, and one is not to collect rocks from a section of one park.

Training and Planning

I’ve had a good year training – averaging about an hour and a half of biking each day this past week, and thought I was ready. I also had a good setup for the event – planning clothing, hydration, snacks, strategy, and sun protection.

The 5-hour event would be a test of sorts.

Half way

My mood was very positive at the half way point. I’d covered the SW corner of the map and was feeling good. I had been taking care of myself and didn’t think I had built much of any running debt that would get in the way. I made plans with the thought that I could cover a good distance in the remaining time.

Unfortunately over the next hour I slowed until I was able only to walk the last portion of the race. The early navigational plans simplified to an efficient route that took me by the most controls, lopped off all unnecessary climbs, and still had options should I be able/not-able to keep a solid walking pace.

Results

Only a handful of competitors opted for the 5 hour solo event, and I consider my results a good outing (42 of 61 controls in 4:45). I was one control behind, and three in front of other competitors that I’m often behind. It looks like I covered about 32km/20mi during the event, and I’m probably in the right ballpark to say that the last 90 minutes were at a 20 minute/mile walking pace.

As my first “really long” event, I’m pleased with how my body has held up the next day. I can’t say that I trained any single session longer than 2 hours so far this year. My body is sore, but doesn’t have any blistering or acute pain that I’m worried about. (There’s some chaffing, so a little bit of a lesson learned there – the silky shirt was not enough;-)

Club lessons

The club took a chance in holding this large of an event, and was a bit anxious with early sign-up numbers. Thankfully a good number flowed in close to the event and it’s a net win for the club. While I don’t have access to the registration data, I noticed a good number of people that I don’t normally see at events.

The great thing that has already come up – you can’t believe the parklands we have surrounding Irondequoit Bay;-)

Life lessons

Much of life seems to be in preparation for that “Big Event”.

The first thought I have is that you have to get out there once in a while and test yourself – to see how well that preparation is going.

The second is that it’s still good to enjoy every day and not put too much emphasis on either the future or the past – oops – I’ve talked about “Living Today” again;-)