That's What She Said: Orienteering days

More navigational fun at the Cal O-Fest in July! The next week was all around the Truckee area, a perfect place for running in lovely, cool forests.

Day 5 was a middle distance event at Little Truckee Summit. John had a later start than I did, but I messed around looking for one control and we ended up next to each other near the finish. He crushed the overall "Beard competition" by the end of all the events, always fun to try to keep up with him.

[Most of the photos below are courtesy of Orienteering USA - great action shots!]

Coming down the chute to the finish of Day 5:

Daniel running strong:

His dad Lubomir, looking focused:

Next was a long course at Sagehen for day 6. I had a couple lucky "bingos" to somewhat counteract a couple "whiffs" and less-than-ideal route choices. Challenging day!

People came from all over to try their hand at orienteering in California:

Including some runners from Mexico:

John sporting an old Hardrock 100 race shirt - looking good!

Our friend Ron from Phoenix:

One of the race photographers - thank you!

Sometimes it's a rough road...

I like to caption this "how to win at orienteering", although we were actually doing control pickup after the event:

The always-fun relay was up next! This time at Northstar, running around the ski village.

The US orienteering team posed for a group photo:

Elite teams ran a much longer course than the rest of us, so we got to watch them start (and later finish):

I led off for our team, making one minor error but otherwise feeling OK about it. Rex and John had about-perfect runs and we were happy to have a good day overall. I only wish we had gotten a photo of our team to share with everyone.

The station where each runner would "punch" the last control of their leg...

...before tagging off to the next teammate:

Odd (that's his name) figuring out the stairwell portion of the challenge:

Ski areas already tend to be confusing to navigate, making this a great place for orienteering:

Mark from San Diego running through the streets:

Jay, our ever-steady timing/results guy - thanks Jay!

Alongside an R1S in this instance, we made good use of the Rivian Adventure Network (RAN) charging station in Truckee - thank you Rivian!

Back into the woods for a middle-distance event (day 8). The days are starting to run together for me by now. I vaguely remember doing reasonably well on a technical course. And for sure, enjoying ourselves.

Best photo of the whole two weeks!

And a couple pictures of us:

Not quite as much air as the kid:

And finally! Day 9, a run around Spooner Lake (literally around it). John and I had been choosing the longest courses we could for most of the festival, but we dropped down to our "normal" category (i.e. shorter) for days 8 and 9. We've got a 24-hour rogaine coming up, after all. That made this "long" course feel downright straightforward and not at all taxing.

Spooner Lake had some of the best scenery:

The clock leading into the start area. Every minute or 2, several runners headed off onto different courses, keeping people somewhat separated to do their own thing. It's an efficient system, made much easier with electronic punches.