Pawtuckaway Trifecta

Pawtuckaway State Park, NEW HAMPSHIRE -- Several months ago the NH-12 adventure race scheduled for this weekend at Pawtuckaway State Park in Nottingham, NH was reschedule to September. In it's place, the folks at Racing Ahead decided to hold a triple O-meet (or trifecta...their term) consisting of 60 minute foot, paddle, & bike rogaine's. Always needing the nav work and tapering for Pineland Farms 25k next week anyway, I took the hour drive south to one of my favorite NH state parks. Pawtuck' has a great mixture of paddling, singletrack, and some of the coolest glacial erratics you'll find anywhere. The plan was to race all three rogaine's taking no more than a 30 minute transition between courses. My first course was the Foot-O and it's 20 controls. The plan was to tag the 4 controls in and around Neals Cove and then head over to the Big Island and attack the 8 CP's on the southeast side of Burnham Marsh before cutting over to the northwest side of the marsh and the 7 remaining CP's. I started well, but couldn't locate CP4. Turns out I had seen it, but thought it was a paddle CP and didn't bother to go and get it. Things on the southeast side of the marsh went very well with use of terrain association, aiming off, and compass headings. At CP 8 I came to an important decision. With about 30 minutes remaining it became evident that all 7 controls on the other side of the marsh probably wouldn't be attainable. In fact, I quickly made the decision to forgo CPs 9 & 11 in favor of a more obvious (and shorter) attack point to CP 10. From CP10 I aimed off in a northerly direction to the marsh to travel along it's banks to CP12 before crossing the small section of land to the other side. After 3-4 minutes of struggling to find the right knoll I bailed on CP12 and headed to the other side of the marsh with less than 18 minutes left. I easily picked up the Fundy Trail and raced westward toward the road taking brief side trips to tag CP's 13, 16, and 18 before heading back to the START/FINISH. I clocked back in at 57 minutes and change with 11 controls (55 points). After a 30 minute break I clocked out for the Paddle-O. Again, it was a straightforward clockwise attack. Without a great deal of paddling experience it's hard to judge how fast you can travel in a kayak in flatwater. I made the decision (perhaps too early) to skip CP's 11 & 8 figuring they were a little too far off the beaten path and that there were plenty of other scoring chances bunched together near Mountain & Neals Cove. The paddle nav was very clean. At CP2 with approximately 20 minutes to go I made the decision to also skip CP3. It looked a little too far down Mountain Cove and I felt it may cost me a chance to pick up two CPs (CP1 & CP13) positioned along Neals Cove. I clocked back in with an uncomfortable 8 minutes to spare. As it turns out, I probably should have made an attempt at CP's 11 & 8 because I probably had the time. My point total for the Paddle-O was again 55 points (11 CPs). During my final 30 minute transition I ate a little snack while I studied the Bike-O map. The bike controls appeared to be positioned on or near parts of the expansive trail network at Pawtuck'. I honestly haven't spent much time on the bike this year and I let that negative thought creep into my head before I started. And I immediately paid the price for the negative karma. I bobbled mightily on CP4 locating it after a devastating 5 minutes of backtracking. When I finally reached the sweet singletrack off the Fundy Trail (I wish I could remember the name, but I'm planning to head back there soon to ride it again!) I was quickly running out of time. The original plan to ride the entire length of singletrack to Round Pond Trail never materialized. With 20 minutes to go I turned around after punching CP8 and rode back in the same direction I came. I had just enough time to ride back up the main park road to tag one final CP (#9 and my 9th of this course). I clocked back in with 2 minutes left. The total for the Bike-O was a disappointing 45 points (9 controls). My "trifecta" total for the day was 155 points. I'll guess that will put me in the middle of the pack for the day. Despite the mediocre finish position, I was very pleased with both my technical & physical performance. I ran, paddled, and rode up to nearly every control I located. And with the NH-12 Adventure Race scheduled at the park in September I know I gained extremely valuable recon (and and O-map) of the lay of the land.

[Photo creds: O-sign, Foot-O map, Paddle-O map, inlet of Pawtuckaway Lake]

PS. Pawtuckaway Trifecta >>RESULTS<<.

College Woods O-Meet

College Woods, UNH, Durham, NEW HAMPSHIRE -- Brayden, Pop, and myself headed over to UNH this afternoon for our first orienteering meet of 2009. It was the first time this year that all three generations of Dunn's have raced together. College Woods is essentially a "home meet" for us. After stopping at the recycling center (for the first time in three weeks), Brayden and I headed to Madbury to pick up Pop. When we arrived on campus I drove directly to the fieldhouse where I expected the START/FINISH to be located as it had the past two years we've attended meet's here. When there were plenty of spots in the faculty/staff lot adjacent to the football field I should have immediately known something was awry. Without getting out of the car we could tell this wasn't the place. I called home and asked Maddie to check online to find out where the start was located. After a quick Google search she found the UNO website and the description of the starting location for today's meet...Greg Hall. As the only alumni of the university in the vehicle all eyes quickly fixed on me. Problem was, I was a UNH student over 20 years ago and the names of the buildings had long since faded from my consciousness. Frankly, where I was last weekend had long since faded from my consciousness. The great thing about O-meets is that there are almost always signs pointing to the start. Trust me, the irony of getting lost on the way to an orienteering meet is never lost on me. After no more than one U-turn we found the signs and eventually Greg Hall. Today's objective was to 1.) spend some time with my father and son, and 2.) build a little nav confidence on an easy yellow course layout. We checked in, paid the $5 for our map, and then transferred the 16 controls to our maps from the master sheet. A quick scan of the controls revealed many of them on or adjacent to the trail network within College Woods. The clue sheet was written out (see upper right hand corner of the map) although we were prepared to decipher symbols if necessary. The course was very straightforward and sent us in a counterclockwise direction. We basically followed both general compass orientations (ie. North, South, etc) and map features. Most the controls were within 250 meters with some located no more than 50 meters apart. All were visible from at least 25 meters away. We really only had two small mistakes. The first was 5-6. I had planned to aim off to the trail to our northwest and then run southwest on the trail to the control (6; 704, rootstock, east side). Somehow I managed to get us too far south and we ran across the wrong trail. After arriving at obviously the wrong trail junction we doubled back and located the control. The other small error was 9-10. It should have been a simple 100 meter bushwhack on a southeasterly compass bearing to a 1 meter cliff (northeast side). When we arrived at the hill that contained the cliff I ran the team on the southwest side and we had to completely circumnavigate the hill to find the control. Had I attacked on the correct side we would have run right up to it. Luckily, on this course the mistakes cost a minute or two and not 10-20. We finished the 2.7 km course in just over 36 minutes. Running up to the controls was a great confidence boost at this point in the season. Getting a chance to race with my father and son was simply one of the greatest competitive experiences imaginable.