An Urban Rogaine

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This Saturday I completed my longest orienteering event yet: a 3-hour urban rogaine through the streets of Victoria! It started at the University of Victora, my home campus, and spanned three separate maps: the UVic orienteering map at 1:10 000, and street-O maps of two adjacent neighbourhoods (Gordon Head and 10 Mile Point) at 1:15 000.

The first part and the last part of my route were on the UVic map

Instead of using SI, each participant carried a sheet of questions to be answered at control locations, such as giving the registration number of a fire hydrant, or “When are beach fires permitted?’ (“Not at any time,” according to a sign above the beach access). At times this was frustrating if I had trouble finding an answer, since I am used to big orange flags and a control description saying the exact location. But it was also fun to have different tasks at each control. It was fun to explore some new parts of the neighbourhood too – there are lots of hidden trails and beach accesses throughout 10 Mile Point that I had never been to before. 

The ocean!

It was a gorgeous day: a little chilly but the sun was sparkling off the ocean, and lots of walkers and joggers were out. (At one point I had a middle aged couple ask me if I was volunteering – I guess they saw me making notes – and then try to direct me to the park… I told them I was “racing” and kept going…)

There were 86 controls, of which I got to 49 (compare to the winning score of 56). I didn’t even get to Gordon Head, but I am happy with my race anyway – there were a lot of controls, and a lot of ground to cover! I don’t have a GPS, but according to Google maps, I ran about 21 km. By the end, my body was feeling pretty worn out, but I think as continue to train I will be able to run for longer with more ease and grace. The biggest technical challenge was definitely route choice (and I can always benefit from some route choice practice!). It took some planning ahead on the way out to the point, to decide which central controls I should go to, and which ones to leave for the way back.

Almost got them all!

I'll have to do this part another day :)

I'm looking forward to doing a self-organized rogaine on the Gordon Head map sometime soon. It's nice to be able to train with a map, even a simplified one, and it makes training more exciting!

The results are available from the VicO website: http://www.orienteeringbc.ca/vico/