Seattle Adventure Running Tournament

This past weekend an contingent from GVOC headed down to compete in the Seattle Adventure Running tournament.  The event was a sprint orienteering tournament featuring an 80 person  bracket.

There were 6 races: a time trial, 4 mass starts (without forking) and a forked final. The mass starts were heats of 5 where the top two moved to the upper bracket, and the last two moved to the lower bracket. The 3rd place competitor of two heats would have their race times compared and the person with the faster time advanced to the upper bracket.

It was an exciting format. You got placed with the competitors closer to your fitness/orienteering skill level as the weekend went on.

 My first really competitive heat came in round 3 (the 3rd mass start race). After a tricky multi leveled race on the North Seattle College map, Eric Bone and I claimed top two. However, the heat was a fast, allowing Graeme Rennie advance to with his 3rd place finish.

Having made it to the top 10, the two races on Sunday promised to be quite exciting. Thanks to the excellent course planing and organization by the Cascade orienteering club, the races delivered on the hype. The semi final race featured an interesting route choice right off the start. What do you think is the ideal route to control 1?

Graeme Rennie, knowing he would be unable to keep up if the heat took a runners route, led the heat straight up the hill to the parking lot. Upon reaching the parking lot Eric Bone and Will Enger took routes to the north of the track while Graeme Rennie, Ian Collings and I ran along the parking lots to the south of the track. Thanks to Graeme's snap decision, we all missed the trail route to the far north with barely any climb. The route choice on control 1 allowed Ian Collings and I to jump to a comfortable lead and 1,2 placing. Despite a heroic comeback, Will  was held off by Graeme in the finish sprint. The result was a final with 4 Canadians and New Zealand national team member Jourdan Harvey.


Unlike the other heats, the final was forked and involved lots of passable fences to vault over / slide through.

GVOC member Ian Saari sprinted to victory, followed by Jordan, myself, Graeme and Ian Collings.
The full results, splits and maps of the races can be found at the event website.

It was a well organized event with inserting maps and a exciting format. I'm certainly looking forward to another Seattle Adventure Running Tournament next year.