FCE Thank You!
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Topic created by DaveDarrah on Sun Jul 14, 2013 at 7:00 pmMany thanks to the understaffed Reeds for a great French Creek East event. This map has always caused me major problems (I'm pretty sure I have DNFs on this map for every level from Orange up), but I had a solution today: Run Yellow! A perfect course, just the right amount of off-trail navigation, and a really fun run. My thanks to the Reeds and everyone else who helped with this event. Some photos here, including one of Fred at Registration at 12:53PM. Things must have been running smoothly!
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Reply by FredR on Sun Jul 14, 2013 at 10:53 pmHi, folks. Bailey here.
We got off to a bit of a late start, but the event ran pretty smoothly after that.
I have a few thank-you's of my own to make. You never quite realize the importance of volunteers until you run an event. I'd like to thank John Gillette, Tom Mentrak, Bob Agosta, Bob Rycharski, Ron Bortz, Ed Scott, Scott Thatcher, Ron Wood, Mark Cornish, Bob Gross, and all the other people I'm forgetting. And I'd like to thank Sam for setting courses and running start, and my dad (i.e., Fred) for all his effort, guidance, and miscellaneous help.
And thanks to all the people who came out and took on those challenging courses!
-Bailey -
Reply by Gillettejw on Mon Jul 15, 2013 at 8:34 amThanks to you, Bailey, for your expertise with the computer. You cleared the backlog out quickly.
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Reply by anniemac on Mon Jul 15, 2013 at 9:02 amI love seeing a whole family come together to put on an event - Thank you, Reeds (and the many other volunteers.)I got a great workout on the Green course - thanks!
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Reply by edscott on Mon Jul 15, 2013 at 9:42 amSeemed to be a renewed interest yesterday in the areas that were hit by the fire. I did a quick sketch of the area the next week and it is posted here:
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Reply by BRycharski on Mon Jul 15, 2013 at 7:31 pmThanks to Bailey and Sam and Fred and all the other helpers at French Creek O meet on last Sunday. It was a nice map and my only complaint was that I ignored Sams (CS) course notes and took some off trail detours on the Brown course, and paid in some lost time as in hindsite the trail system was there and say from Brown 1 to 2- I used very little of it. I should have used it more (did use it/the trails to get to the #7 flag near the FC Dam but before the Go control), ... I did not realise the forest fire pattern was either it ... was nice to run IN or the fire bypassed That area, and one then had tall brambles and weeds sometimes to deal with. But Sam had hung most of the control flags high, so one could see them once you were close to your control circle center. Well, my idea was to not dehydrate and try to run clean, and in the summer PA heat I suceeded, and so my run was not steller but was OK considering the humid conditions. Hope the summer heat waves - lessen as August approaches. Good job all helpers. Remember Newbies to DVOA events, please volunteer to help th emeet director even if for 15 minutes, its all appreciated and training is usually easy too.
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Reply by FredR on Tue Jul 16, 2013 at 8:17 pmI'd like to add my thanks to all those that pitched in, and to the patient folk waiting to get early starts. Through some entirely self-inflicted mistakes, Team Reed was off target early on, but as Bailey said, we eventually recovered with the help of many others.Some notes in random order:- Ed Scott's early drawings of the fire boundaries are strikingly similar to my own mental model acquired while helping Sam scout potential control sites. I suspect the fire actually went somewhat beyond his drawn borders, which in many cases resulted in the nice zones created by the fire torching the underbrush but not the established trees. The upper/Eastern part of the Baptism basin to the West of the N-S trail is a good example.- Those nice high flags on the hill in the SE corner of the map weren't intentionally hung that way to make things easier--rather, just a minor training error... Under the circumstances, I'm sure some appreciated them, but I can understand that they were potentially a source of confusion against the rest of the flags that were hung on stands. Sorry about that.- Along those lines, I'm sorry to see so many DNFs, MPs, and just brutally long times among the results for such a hot steamy day. FCE is always challenging, more so in the summer, even more so after a major fire changes the landscape, and even more so after the wettest June in recorded history. I believe Sam took these factors into account--except for potentially the last, as those ferns (and washed out trails, mud, and bugs) kept getting worse right up to the weekend. We talked about short(er) courses early on, but opted to keep them in the "normal" length ranges and then encourage people to consider running down a course if their situation warranted. Because of the fire pattern, it just seemed to push the lengths up. Speaking for myself, I guess I just didn't anticipate how all the factors would add up to such a major hit on pace. For Sam, maybe everything just looks easier when you are 20.
- You probably noticed that Bailey was the Event Director of-record, and I really wanted her to do and experience all of that position. Unfortunately for the event, and for her, she was pulled into epunch duty all day long which, especially for a well-attended event such as this, is a full-time job. Without an ED, some things don't get caught (e.g., running out of White maps and not knowing it, forgetting to take down banners) It would have been nice to have some more help at epunch, but in looking over the results list, I don't see the "usual suspects" for epunch duty. My point is that if an out-of-town rogaine or A event similarly depletes our usual epunch pool, we can be in a bad way. I encourage more people to volunteer to learn and get comfortable with epunch. There are great laminated guides in each kit that pretty much reduce the required skill set down to just being able to read.- I also felt bad for Sam who spent most of the time at Start. One of the rewards and pleasures of being a course setter is hanging around finish and talking with runners as they come in about the courses. I just wish it were easier to ensure that volunteers are lined up before actually starting the event. There might be some people without access to the web site, but I have to believe that the on-line volunteer list fails for social rather than technological reasons.- Okay, so the maps were hard to read. 1:15k maps are a challenging exception to the rule around here anyway, and the questionable quality of the laser printed maps (insufficient offsets were available) added to the challenge. These were generated as postscript files from Condes and printed on high quality glossy paper at Kinkos in Exton. If someone has a better way of doing that, I'd love to hear about it.Thanks again to a great club.Fred -
Reply by Guy-O on Wed Jul 17, 2013 at 0:33 amRe: Maps...
IMO, the only thing that was hard to read were the contour lines. The scale provided some longer-than-expected legs, but that was fair enough, because we knew they would be 1:15. But those faint contour lines obscured some fairly important information.
I have to wonder: Did you send the print orders to Kinkos electronically, then go there to pick up product? A test run would have revealed the issue with the faint contours -- assuming there was time to experiment...
Overall, though, the effects of being shorthanded were not all that apparent. Seemed like a typically well-run DVOA event to me! -
Reply by edscott on Wed Jul 17, 2013 at 11:18 amRe the fire map... Yes I know it went further East in a couple spots. The darker bordered areas were checked but where the yellow marker just ends the border was not reached on my walk that day.. and the whole thing was done from memory after I got home.Re the brown features Sunday... I had trouble seeing them especially in the woods with the combination of sun glare and shadows on the map while the sweat ran down my face into my eyes. We need to have Vlad redo the green in the burn area and extend the Baptism Creek map out to Miller's point then down the hill to make the Mill Run trail the Eastern boundary. Bear Hill needs to be re-evaluated before making a decision on including that area. I suspect much of the area on Bear Hill south of the main trail are of little value at this time. We do need to have an offset printed version of FCE available.
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Reply by rpboehme on Thu Jul 18, 2013 at 9:15 amSome friends and I hiked the burn zones last winter a couple times and what was interesting was while the trails were unscorched, the surrounding woods were scorched. There was lots and lots of pokeweed in the burn zones, which must have complicated the navigation for last year's and this year's events.
I actually had printed off a copy of Ed's famous map and used it to show the hiker friends some features and how accurately Ed mapped the burn zones. :-)
