EMPO Goes to New England
One of the larger contingents of
EMPO club members in recent memory, eight, made the trip to central Massachusetts
for the New England Championship "O" Meet in late September,
this year, and were met with great success. Of particular note was the
Club's results in the Female and Junior Classes, where each entrant finished
"in the money."
This year the Meet was set up on two very different venues for the two
days. On Saturday, the courses were at Townsend State Forest, a large,
relatively flat area close to the New Hampshire border. The area has only
a moderate trail network, and many parts are fairly featureless, requiring
careful selection of attack points and more compass work than in some places.
It is also not very open in much of the woods, which slows you down, forces
you out of your way, and makes it hard to pick out the control flag even
when you are close. None of these problems had much to do with how I managed
to foul up the 3rd control, which ultimately cost me the race many kilometers
and one day later: I was sloppy in identifying the correct trail bend for
my attack point -- twice! At least I didn't get completely tangled up in
any mountain laurel thickets, as I had a few years ago.
All the rest of the EMPO folk had better outings on Saturday. It's always
nice to feel like you're still in the race on the second day, and pretty
much everyone was. Sunday's courses were set on the more recent Mount Wachusett
map, site of, among other things, this past Spring's Billygoat Run. If
your were there then, or saw the feature article on it in Orienteering
North America, you know that there was a substantial amount of snow still
on the mountain for that event. Mount Wachusett is a downhill ski area
during the winter, and they must have had a good snow season last year;
but by October it was finally all gone! Now there was just the mountain
itself to deal with. To keep the climb within official limits, the upper
part of the mountain wasn't used this time around, but there was still
more than enough to satisfy all but the most masochistic. It rained the
night before, but fortunately it wasn't enough to make things very slippery
or sloppy, and the temperature was comfortable for running.
And run we all did, with much success as shown below. The courses were
well set, except for one control placement error affecting Red and Green
runners. In the end there was no protest, and there would have been little
effect in any class in which EMPO was competing. Next Spring, come to an
"A" Meet with the EMPO crew and we'll have even more of us to
swap route choice ideas (and maybe a few excuses, tall tales, and other
stories).
