Wheaton Orienteering Meet Sarah

Posted on December 4, 2005 by vmeyer

Sarah met me at the Wheaton Regional Park orienteering meet today. We went out on an Orange course together – very challenging because I was gabbing so much, I often lost track of where we were. Luckily, Wheaton is a park with many trails, fields, a lake, etc., so I could easily relocate. We took a ride down a slide when a playground was on the way to a control. Too bad the miniature train wasn’t running! Many thanks to Sarah for joining me.

Heidi handled the electronic punching very capably in my absence. It was her first time, and she did great! Thank you Heidi (and David for setting an excellent course).

Team Work

Posted on November 15, 2005 by vmeyer

Sandy and I review the event setup at the Fair Hill Chapel Sprint this past Friday – two heads were often better than one this weekend.

Thanks to Julie Keim for the use of this great picture.

Fair Hill Orienteering Weekend

Posted on November 14, 2005 by vmeyer

Three days of beautiful weather, excellent courses, and superb company made for a great event this past weekend at DVOA’s Fair Hill A-Meet (sprint, classic, and long over three days). Sandy and I formed the electronic punching team. We had interested parties from NEOC learning the SportIdent process throughout the weekend.

Photo courtesy of Julie Keim.

Mount Bachelor

Posted on August 26, 2005 by vmeyer

From left to right – Sandy, Valerie, Kris – we rode the chair lift about halfway up Mount Bachelor (about 20 miles from Bend, Oregon). This is the area where the US Championships are going to be held over the next two days. We did the model event first. Beautiful area! More pictures available on Flickr.

Golden Ladies of the Night-O

Posted on August 25, 2005 by vmeyer

Today’s event was a three person relay. Gail, Sandy (on the right) and I (on the left with the bloody legs) made up a novelty team of women who won gold at the Night-O. I probably should have reconsidered the route choice through the green since I didn’t have anything covering my legs. Photo courtesy of Eddie Bergeron.

Sprint at COCC

Posted on August 24, 2005 by vmeyer

I flew into Redmond, Oregon yesterday for five orienteering events being held in and near Bend, Oregon. Today, I ran in two events. The first was a “sprint” race of 2.2 km. I ran it in 18:24, 2nd woman and 15 out of 50 overall. A very satisfying result. Sprint photo courtesy of Eddie Bergeron.

Today’s second event was a 4 km course held on the Arnold Ice Cave map. The footing was the hardest I have ever encountered – soft sand, lava rocks, and scrubby bushes. Otherwise, it was a fun event with a chase start and butterfly loops. Here is my map with the route that my Garmin Forerunner 301 picked up. Much to Roger’s disappointment, I did not go to see the actual ice cave.

Colorado 5 Day – Take 2

Posted on August 11, 2005 by vmeyer

What a great trip! Flew in on Sunday so that I had time to do some tourist stuff before the orienteering events started. I stayed at the M Lazy C Ranch about 5 miles from Lake George, CO. Had the use of the Settler cabin – perfect accommodations. My friend, Sandy, and I did some hiking and practice orienteering before the rest of the folks rolled in on Tuesday evening.

I used my Garmin Forerunner 301 to track my routes around the courses. I only looked at it to take splits at each control. There has been some recent discussions about the fact that these devices are not allowed on the course during Radio Orienteering. Frankly, I have no idea how I could have used the Forerunner to my advantage except for maybe using it to measure distance. Using it to determine my location and to get me to the next control would be impossible. Most importantly, my poor performance probably proves that I didn’t receive any advantage from this device.

Anyway, here are my routes taken from the FR 301 for the following events:
Buena Vista Day 1 Green course
Blue Mountain Day 2 Green course
Manitou Lake Night-O Green course
Lake George 8 Point Relay Yellow course
Round Mountain Day 3 Green course

Colorado 5 Day

Posted on August 9, 2005 by vmeyer

relay_finish
(Photo courtesy of Eddie Bergeron – Thanks!)
Had a great time in Colorado – 6 orienteering events over five days. Here I am finishing the relay. QOC won the bronze medal in the 8 point category. I led off and was followed by Gayle Ryan, Nadim Ahmed, and Ted Good. More to come.

Annapolis Summer Short Series Sprint

Posted on July 23, 2005 by vmeyer

QOC held two sprint events in Annapolis. There was a nice turnout of 25 people.

Peggy and I drove to the event together yesterday – we had to make a side trip to Cottonseed Glory (quilt store). I can always count on Peggy being up for a quilt store visit.

Great Falls O’ Training

Posted on July 9, 2005 by vmeyer

QOC holds informal orienteering training on Saturday evenings during the summer which I am usually unable to attend. I printed the maps for today’s Great Falls, MD event and dropped them off in Potomac. This deer was eating the flowers next door.

Then I headed to Great Falls and ran the training exercise on my own. This was one of the control locations which were marked by engineering tape. Warm morning with a ton of spider webs in the woods. I must have gotten at least 30 in my face.