Hickory Run courses etc.
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Topic created by Orienteeringmom on Sun Nov 7, 2010 at 5:55 pmThis A event was entitled, Hickory Run Rocks! Well, I can't say that Hickory Run is one of my favorite places to orienteer but I CAN say that Sandy Fillebrown's course setting really gave me a great time in the woods this weekend. After today, I know the family campgrounds like the back of my hand and yesterday I really did enjoy the beauty of the Shades of Death trail even it I was terrified of falling climbing up and down the rocks along the creek. I had a great weekend in the woods even if it was really cold for this time of year. Everyone that helped with the event from start to finish once again desires a great big round of applause for another DVOA well done A event.
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Reply by sfmones on Sun Nov 7, 2010 at 7:33 pmI give the event, and everyone who ran it, an "A."
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Reply by j-man on Sun Nov 7, 2010 at 10:51 pmI agree. Thanks to Nancy, Sandy, and Valerie especially.
And thank to Janet for organizing the activities on Saturday that raised a lot of money for the Teams and which were a lot of fun, too. -
Reply by kathyu on Mon Nov 8, 2010 at 8:03 amDave was registrar, so this was the first time I saw behind the scenes at an A-Meet, and I was amazed at how hard everyone worked to make the event successful. Only the weatherman did a half-assed job
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I was knocked out at the organization, the enthusiasm, and the professionalism of the event, especially the course setting. I know we made a great impression esp on the international participants! Thank you so much to everyone who helped make Hickory Run Rocks so much fun.
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Reply by Nancy on Mon Nov 8, 2010 at 9:53 amSomeone asked on a previous posting about the difference between a local event (sometimes calledl 'training events) and an A event. The difference is in the details, and the number of people it takes to get those details right.
As a third-time A event director, I've seen first-hand the number of details and the tremendous efforts of our members to make sure DVOA continues to provide a first-rate orienteering experience at the A-events we host.
Thanks first of all to Sandy Fillebrown, who started thinking about these courses more than two years ago and who even a few weeks before the event was still working to get the various courses 'just right' so everyone would have the best experience possible.
Thanks to Clem for designing and setting up the sprint course.
Thanks to Dave Urban, registrar, and to his crew at registration. Much more work is involved in A-event registration than just having people fill out a waiver and pay when they sign up.
Thanks to the technical crew that helped take the courses Sandy envisioned and make sure they worked in the woods, including tweaking the map in the control placement areas and travel corridors, placing controls exactly where Sandy wanted them, and ensuring the correct description of those control locations.
A very big thank-you to Eric Weyman for the map-tweaking work! ('Tweaking' is too weak a word for what Eric does.)
Thanks to the parking crew, for helping shoe-horn the cars into a limited parking area without making people feel like sardines when they opened the doors of their vehicles.
Thanks to the start crew, working with two events on Saturday and with a remote start location on Sunday.
Thanks to the finish crew, who set up the finish shute, tracked finishers and also prepared the food at the finish area.
Thanks to the people who helped pick up controls so we weren't too late in the park on Sunday.
Thanks to Valerie for all her efforts, from getting participants set up, assigning start times, juggling changes in start times, juggling last-minute changes in e-punch card numbers, to producing results sheets.
Thanks to Vadim and Greg for the announcing services.
Thanks to Bob Gross, for designing the T-shirts and awards. (Some T-shirts still available for sale!)
Thanks to all of DVOA's members and friends who helped make the weekend a tremendous success!
And last but not least: thanks to all the competitors. If it weren't for you, there would be no reason to put on an A-event.
Hope to see you all in the woods again sometime soon. -
Reply by j-man on Mon Nov 8, 2010 at 1:17 pmYes--about the map...
This map really is a work of art and the result of an intense amount of work and attention to detail. If you like maps, I think just walking on this map, rather than running on it, will be a treat. Each of those vegetation transitions are each the result of careful deliberation. An area like this would have markedly lesser utility if not mapped to this standard.
And, I've never seen a one millimeter section of trail used to better effect.
Thanks Eric! -
Reply by EricW on Mon Nov 8, 2010 at 8:41 pmAlexey Zuev deserves plenty of gratitude here as well. He did the most difficult part of the map work, to his normal great standard. I just did some polishing. I very much enjoyed walking on his map, except for a couple places, one of which might be an area near the trail to which Clem refers :-)
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Reply by Orienteeringmom on Tue Nov 9, 2010 at 9:12 pmEven though I was scared to death of falling in certain spots on the Shades of Death Trail on Saturday, I totally loved the beauty of that trail and all of the pink streamers that Sandy hung so that the runners on the trail wouldn't get lost as it is not easy to follow. I probably should not admit that I did take time in some spots to sit and just enjoy the beauty of the flowing creek over the rocks and the fall foilage what was left of it. For years as we drive up and down Rt.534 I have always enjoyed the beauty of the creek and pines when close to the road now I can actually say I have enjoyed the beauty up close and personal. I really did enjoy it!
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Reply by yoyonateo on Thu Nov 11, 2010 at 11:07 pmThe woods were enjoyable!
The courses were enjoyable!
The event was enjoyable!
This meet is now in my mind as the ideal A-meet. Everything just went according to plan and the courses were just awesome. This was the first time i ever helped out at an A-meet and i must say that there is a lot of work that needs to be done. I am going to give Sandy a big online high five right now for just making sure everything got done.
Today i was thinking to myself and though that now with the Shades of Death and the Sand Spring Lakes maps. This would be an awesome place to have and Ultra-Long O or any type of super long orienteering event. We could call the event the Bear Run and have 3 different course. You could have the Cub Bear, Black Bear courses and the main course will be the Grizzly Bear Challenge. Have some kind of cool prize for the winner. I don't think this is an idea that is going any where but it was just a though that I had and decided to share with everyone.
Congradulations to everyone who competed or helped out this weekend! It was great! -
Reply by Sandy on Sat Nov 13, 2010 at 9:19 amThanks, Nate. Note that I only took care of things having to do with the middle and long courses, Nancy did most of the other organizing and Clem was in charge of the sprints.
If anyone is interested in organizing an event such as Nate describes, let meknow and I'll be happy to help you get started. I was also thinking that a 6-12 hour rogaine type event would also be a great use of the maps.
