US Short Course Orienteering Championships

April 1-3, 2005

I read in a career book once that you should find a job you like because enjoying it is a good indication that you are good at it. The author then went on to note that the exceptions to this rule generally fell into the area of sports and hobbies. Well, I enjoy short course orienteering. And, if last weekend is any indication, I'm not very good at it.

This year's champs are part of the annual Flying Pig meet in Cincinnati. The three day meet features three course lengths: sprint, short, and classic. All three events are used for selecting the US team to go to world championships in Japan. Saturday (short) is also an individual championship.

Competition maps: sprint short classic

The rain starts falling about an hour before my start. It's a light rain and doesn't make conditions any greasier than they already are (southern Ohio has seen more than enough rain lately). The mud isn't really a problem except for a few steep slopes. What is a problem is reading the map while running at sprint pace. Most of the run is clean, but a parallel error on #5 costs me nearly three minutes. That's all it takes in a sprint to move you waaaaaaay down the standings.

The next day is short course. Although not as frenetic as the 15-minute sprint event, the 35-minute short course still puts a premium on fast decisions and tight navigation. Most legs are only 2-3 minutes long, so a 15-second error is pretty significant.

The rain hasn't stopped since the previous afternoon making the course soft everywhere and nearly impassible in spots. I decide to run conservatively, figuring that many competitors will struggle with the conditions so a clean run should hold up well. I have a 90-second boom on #8 and a bad route to #11 sets me back another 30 seconds, but overall it's a decent effort.

David Frei, who skipped the sprint, turns in a great performance that looks like it might win M40+ until Joe Brautigham comes in with the fastest time. Mark Voit slides in between David and I for third place.

The rain lets up Saturday evening and Sunday dawns with bright blue skies. The classic distance course is still sloppy in spots, but there are opportunities to run fast. One such opportunity is the first control and I run very fast in the wrong direction and then lose a whopping 8:30 trying to figure out what went wrong. Any hope of a high finish is trashed by the time I punch the first control.

Perhaps relaxed now that the pressure is off, I do manage to put together a decent run for the rest of the course. The damage is done, however, and my finish time of 76 minutes lands me 6th in M40+. David has had another good run, taking third in M40+.

The sloppy runs (in every sense of the word) come as no surprise. I've been doing very little technical training as of late and sprint and short course are all about technique. The gigantic boom on Sunday simply defies explanation. Clearly my head wasn't in the game at the start.

Still, it was a fun weekend and the races lived up to the Pig's fine reputation. It was also nice to see teammates do so well. Aside from David's performance, St. Louis' Anna Shafer-Skelton continued her assault on the under 17 field by winning not only the girls' championship, but beating all the boys as well.