Two of my favorite summer activities are running in the mountains and orienteering. So I always look forward to the Arctic Orienteering Club’s Mountain Orienteering event each summer. It’s like chocolate and peanut butter. Two great tastes that taste great together.
This year’s event was on August 16, held in Bear Valley above Anchorage. It was organized by Trond Flagstad. Trond was this year’s Alaska Mountain Running Champion, so we knew it would be a challenging course. Trond also recruited a few fast runners to show up as well. It was shaping up to be an great event.
The race started with a 1500 foot climb to the ridge above Bear Valley, where the first control was located. When we reached the ridge, I was in fourth place and had a perfect view as Ian pulled off one of the best orienteering moves I’ve seen. He and Patrick (a very fast runner doing his first orienteering race) were in the lead together, chatting a bit as they ran. The trail headed uphill, just above a small band of rocky cliffs. Patrick headed up the trail, while Ian knew from reading his map that the control was at the base of the small cliff. Ian skirted below the cliff, as if he was merely avoiding the excess elevation gain on the trail. In the few seconds he was out of Patrick’s sight, Ian swept down and punched the control, without hardly breaking stride. He then rejoined the trail, and he and Patrick began chatting again. Ian let a couple minutes go by before he kindly told Patrick that he already found #1. D’oh. As Patrick turned around and headed back to find #1, he said “I didn’t know trickery was part of this.” I was so jazzed up by the great fake-out, that I could help but respond with a little smack about how we weren’t “going to hold his hand the whole way.”
We all had a hard time finding #2. The ridge line was moving in and out of fog, and it made the navigation more difficult. Ian, Bastien, Andrew and I were all wandering in circles looking for #2 when Patrick came by and asked if I needed him to hold my hand. Touché, nicely played.
Eventually all those other guys managed to find the control and slip off into the fog, while I was left wandering. Maybe I should have held someone’s hand. It wasn’t until another group of orienteers including Karl, Jen, Eeva, and Lindsey arrived, ten minutes later, that I was eventually able to punch #2 and move on. By then I was way back in the pack and pretty bummed. I didn’t know it at the time, but it turns out I was in last place for men doing the long course. Ouch. I had been looking forward to chasing Ian and Bastien through the mountains, and now I was all alone trying to catch people I couldn’t see in the fog.
I picked off the next few controls cleanly and also passed a lot of people along the way. As I descended off the ridge towards control #7 on a mix of scree, snow and tundra, I could see Patrick at the control about 5 minutes ahead of me. Bastien was about 5 minutes in front of him, climbing back up the ridge towards #8. Maybe I could catch those guys! Ian was out of sight, well on this way to an easy victory.
The second half of the race was almost all nasty side-hilling. My shoes were filled with gravel from the scree descent, and now my feet were screaming in pain with every side-hill step. I could feel the blisters forming, as the skin on my heels and forefoot moved independently from the rest of my feet. I was envisioning a shredded mess of blood and skin at the finish.
I caught Patrick at the next-to-last control. We said a few words (no smack this time, I learned my lesson) and departed on different routes. He went down the valley and up the other side, while I decided to side-hill (Arrrrgh!) around rather than lose elevation. I was confident that my route was faster, but my feet were so painful that I was barely limping along. When I reached the last control, I thought there was a chance that I was ahead of Patrick. But that hope evaporated as I descended out of the fog towards the finish when I saw him about a minute ahead of me. Bastien was three minutes ahead of Patrick, and Ian was way ahead, winning by twenty minutes.
Oh well, fourth place for me. I had been hoping for second, or even to challenge Ian for first, but it was a pretty good recovery considering my bad start.
When I took off my shoes at the finish, my feet were indeed riddled with blisters. But shockingly, none of them had popped. Ten minutes before, I never would have believed that to be the case.
The day after the race, I could not walk very well. When I did walk it was like I was stepping on tiny waterbeds. Very painful waterbeds. As I write this, two days later, the swelling has gone down and I am walking again. The pain has been replaced by thoughts of a great day racing through the mountains with friends.
Who knows, I might even be ready to run in Wednesday’s orienteering meet.
Results Here
Watch Ian school me in RouteGadget (we’re the only two who put in our routes)
