O-Cup Kickoff

Formerly the THOMASS winter orienteering series and now dubbed the O-Cup with a "Thomass" format.

Terrain: forest, snowy ski hill, trail
Weather: overcast but probably >0
Hosts: Guelph Gators

It definitely snowed for us in the morning, a fitting opening to a great new season of winter ass-kicking. The only snow at the race was the first layer of fake stuff on the ski slopes, but if you have to trudge through it, it counts.

The format had two Thomass boxes, plus an extra start handicap. I should have started at control 2, but the start was off-set, so I got confused and ended up at control 1, which essentially took one handicap point away from me, oops. After that, nav was basically great, but I had a hard time running. Part of it was my hamstring as well as some pretty strong arch pain I'd developed during the Raid, but mostly I was just really out of running shape.

Route Link

After 7 controls along the flats, I went through the train tunnel and straight up to the top of the ski hill and the box controls on the plateau.

I did well here except for getting distracted by a chatty friend towards the first control, where I just followed the crowd, and the crowd was wrong. It's not that hill, it's that other hill.

The terrain up there was really pretty, especially when the course went south towards the characteristic rocky ridges of the area. At one point, I crossed a trail just as an older couple were taking a walk, and as I emerged from the shrubs, they mockingly mentioned that "there's a trail, you know." Haha. What can you say to normal people?

I only got off-course once, going towards what I now know should be called a "Bingo!" control, as in, it's in the middle of nothing, and when you find it you can yell Bingo! Some of my friends chose to skip it and take a longer way around the ridge for their controls because of that. Smart. Still, I think it's good practise for straight-up orienteering on a bearing, which I suck at.

The last part of the course was in a kind of escarpment canyon. I had never been there before, and it was beautiful how the ridge curved around the control in a big U. I even found a second wind and outran a guy who had caught up to me. Then down the snowy ski hill again, across the train bridge, and straight to the soup kitchen.

The Gators put together a fantastic and varied course, plus cooked up not one but two soups and hot apple cider and home-made cookies that apparently had a nav theme, but almost no one noticed because we just scarfed them down. Great to see everyone out for the season starter too. This isn't going to be my most successful season, but I'll make the best of it.

--Distance: 8.73
--Duration: 1:22:34
--Place: 25th / 89
--Points: 26

I also used new shoes! First time out for my spiky new Inov8 Oroc 280 - I definitely felt more secure on the slippery parts, but need to learn to trust them more. The downside is that, as everyone says, these shoes have zero stability, so my ankles were all over the place. Rolled one quite a bit once.