lessons from big mack

Intended route (orange) vs. actual route (pink)

This past weekend, I raced in the inaugural Big Mack 10-hour rogaine put on by tanZ navigation. I was impressed by Mark and Lora's organization and execution of this event and happy to hear it will be returning next year, possibly in a 6/12/24 hour format!

This was my first rogaine, or orienteering event beyond 4 hours. In addition to running, I did several local virtual courses over the past weekends to prepare myself. But due to heat, humidity and some underlying health concerns, I wasn't quite where I wanted to be.

"We don’t expect anyone to clear the course, so route choice and strategy will be important."

Despite better judgement including the above advice from the RD himself, I drafted an intention sheet to clear the course. This consisted of 30 controls on a main 1:20000 map bookended E and W by two O-courses on separate maps with an additional 10 controls each.

Racers received a digital copy of the main map about 24 hours before the start. But it wasn't until almost midnight Friday night under the light of headlamp in my tent beside Lake Powhatan that I had my route planned out: I'd deviate from what I expected most others to do.

Rather than start off on the Powhatan O-course, I'd head into the center of the main map and pick off most of the central controls on a clockwise inner loop and then return to Powhatan. I'd then take a counterclockwise outer loop out and back from the Ottari course. 

Piece of cake, right? I estimated my route to be about 50 km. One thing I particularly liked about it was that I could resupply about 3 hours in back at Powhatan. Of the 305 points possible, each O-course was worth 55 points. So it was crucial to get both Powhatan and Ottari.

Right from the outset I had some unforced errors adjusting to the scale of the map and nature of the terrain. Mark warned us that the laurels would be thick, so accurate pace counting would be important. I messed up on 4 of the first 6 controls. The biggest blunder was at 95:

I spent over 40 mins lost in the laurel thickets before leaving empty-handed after multiple attacks resetting at the tower. It's likely I was holding my map wrong and mistaking the parallels for meridian lines. All o-maps I've used to this point have only had meridian lines, not a grid.

By the time I made it back to Powhatan, I was about 1.5 hours over my ETA. I then lost even more time struggling to find the third control on the Powhatan course. My grandiose plans were all gone. I had about 4.5 hours left on the race clock, what could I do in that time?

Headed out on Ottari, PC: Jon

I decided to make a bee line to Ottari and get the course done before it closed at 4 pm. This necessitated finding the fastest ~5-mile route over there. I got to the start at about 2:45 pm. I was exhausted by the time I finished it right at closing. Turns out I ran it faster than anyone.

Here I bumped into Charlie. What ensued was an exhausting 2 hr retreat to the S/F trying to get a few more points along the way. Charlie and I shared some of these miles together. Unfortunately I couldn't pull him along with me as the clock ticked down. I finished in 9:59.

My route ended up being over 33 miles with about 6,500 ft of climb. I scored 192 points finishing in fifth place out of 30 teams. Many thanks to Mark, Lora and volunteers for a great event! I particularly liked getting to hang out and talk with Mark, Brian, Charlie and Vonda.