Here is the Irish OC '06, Middle, M21E map, and the armchair gadget/my routes version.
Here is the Irish OC '06, Long, M21E map, and the armchair gadget/my routes version.
Here is the Irish OC '06, Relay, Variant F map, and the armchair gadget/my routes version.
I had occasion to be in Ireland, and while
orienteering wasn't the primary purpose of the
trip, it is nice when these things work out.
The Orienteering was difficult, at least for me. Tons
of unmapped stuff, and one challenge was sorting out
what was mapped, and what was not.
Middle distance was sloppy, including a catastrophic
4 minute error on #8 (too many unmapped hills). Booms
are not quite as bad as they look given the 1:7500 scale,
but still sloppy.
As for the long, I was almost ecstatic about my run,
despite what doesn’t look the an all that great result.
If I rated every race I've done in terms of difficulty,
there would certainly be less than 10 that would rate
A level, and this was one of them. I think the map looks
difficult on paper, and it was even more difficult than
it looks. Of those A level difficult races, this was the
only one where I pretty much executed well. The concentration
required, as well as the skill, were both pretty much beyond
where I am. I wasn't perfect, but close enough for my
tastes given my history in really difficult stuff. When
I turned the map over, and based on my knowledge of the
terrain from the day before, I said to myself -- I'll be
happy if I finish. I'll take close to 10/k given the
physical and technical demands.
In the relay, I once again demonstrated that the trick
is to get good teammates, so I walked away with a gold
in this race (in their 12 point category, which would be
closer to a USOF 6 point category). One biggish error,
but my time was still in the ballpark with other M40s
on the loop, so it was ok, and we ended up winning by
6 minutes, I think. This makes it the third continent
that I've made it to the podium; in this life you take
what you can get, especially when you suck. (And now
I really regret missing a medal in Tasmania a few years
ago by a minute or two ...)
I may have the time to write an article with pics on
this trip later in the week. I certainly hope to write
up more on the long.
