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Team Santa Fe Newsletter
May 2004
6th
World Rogaining Championships 2004
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White Mountains,
Springerville AZ
May 8-9, 2004
http://rogaine.tucsonorienteering.org
47th overall, 18th
mixed open, 5th mixed veteran
2130 points, 33
controls
Deb Werenko & Jan Bear
This was a well organized event staged in the lovely White Mountains
of Arizona, near Springerville, Arizona. The course covered 250 km
and was set with skill and perhaps a sense of humor, i.e., what person
in their right mind would take on the task of getting all those
controls in 24 short hours? The weather cooperated nicely, giving us
cloud cover with scattered rain showers during the day and clear skies
at night with a near half-moon. Team Santa Fe had 4 teams represented
on the rooster and all fared well and enjoyed the event. The Rogaine
had 64 controls with a little over 4000 total points. Team Santa Fe
consisting of Jan Bear and Deb Werenko completed 33 of the controls
for a 47th place finish overall (or 175 teams) and 5th in the 40-50
mixed category, with a total of 2130 points. In our pre-race planning
we decided on a very successful strategy, which entailed one sweeping
clockwise circle starting in the western portion of the course,
working on the higher point perimeter controls, and progressed to the
northwest corner by dusk. We took in the easier, more off road and
trail terrain with fewer landmarks in the day, and the harder, steeper
terrain crossed by roads and trails at night. We added mini loops
through the more difficult terrain always coming back to our main loop
and moving on to the next mini-loop at night. It was a very efficient
strategy, and we were right on when it came to tagging the controls,
thanks to Jan's expert orienteering. Besides a few blisters we took
home memories of beautiful rolling hills covered with lush grass, deer
and elk galore, steep wooded terrain, lakes and marshes neither of us
expected to find in southern Arizona, of all places. Many thanks to
our sponsors: Montrail for their excellent reliable and comfortable
shoes, Thorlo for their warm and cozy socks, Bolle for the diversity
of their sunglasses (day and night use), Camelback for their efficient
and task-worthy packs and water bladders, Reflect and Dermatone for
their effective sun and lip screen (our doctors will not be thanking
you, later), Leki for the trekking poles which were light and easy to
stow increasing our already striking efficiency, Nite-Rider, Petzl,
and Princeton Tec for their superlative lighting systems, making day
out of night worked well in those deeply wooded and rocky areas,
Sealskin for socks that made walking through streams an 'interesting'
but not hypothermic experience. The team had a great day, we worked
well together and I know we'll be doing it again and that we'll just
keep getting better.
| 6th
World Rogaining Championships 2004 |
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White Mountains, Springerville AZ
May 8-9, 2004
http://rogaine.tucsonorienteering.org
61st overall, 24th mixed
open, 7th mixed veteran
1950 points, 29 controls
Carl Gable, age 46, Santa
Fe, NM
Barb Dutrow, age 47, Baton
Rouge, LA
By Carl Gable
Barb and I have raced together many times, in adventure races
(Eco-challenge, BC Canada '96, Subaru Primal Quest, Telluride '02,
Eco-challenge North America '03) and as teammates in ultra relay
running races. We had never done an orienteering or rogaine together
but because of the adventure racing experience and time in the
backcountry together we knew we could work well together. Barb lives
at sea level in Baton Rouge LA so she was not acclimatized to the
9000ft start elevation, I live in Santa Fe at 7000ft so most of my
training is at altitude. However, Barb has raced many times at
altitude and always quickly adjusts without any problem. Prior to the
race, we spent time researching previous rogaines and had to carefully
read the rules. Knowing that this was a world championship, we did
not want to make any rule mistakes.
After studying the maps, our strategy was to head S and start picking
up points in a counter clockwise loop. We decided to go through the
areas with high relief during the day so we could route find across
the river canyon in the SE in the light. We figured it would be much
easier to follow compass bearings in the low relief to the N at night.
We did not plan to return to the HH during the race; but to stay out
the entire 24 hours.
 Our route started
with 70, 61, 90, 65, and 63. At the water stop we
had planned to hit 44, 54 next but we decided instead to skip those
and head straight to 93. We followed a direct line to 56 and opened
some distance on two other teams that followed the road. Next was 88,
68 which we passed at 1615. In our original route plan we thought we
would follow the road to the SE but crossing the canyon did not look
difficult so we made a direct line to 78. The decent of the scree
slope and ascent of the other side to 78 took just under an hour. We
skipped 33 and hit 49, 99, 69, and 79 just as it got dark. We had to
hunt a bit for 87 and wasted 10-15 minutes, then on to 76, 94, and 89.
59 did not seem to be worth going the distance so we skipped it and
hit 57 and 98 at 0225. 58 gave us problems. We went around the N
side of the pond and looked for the control point on the first small
spit of land. We went up and down the ridge twice and decided it was
not there. As we continued around the lake there is a large spit of
land sticking into the pond. I was frustrated and in a hurry from
going up and down the small spit that did not show up on the map and
advocated we just push on and skip the 58. It was 0345 in the
morning, Barb wanted to find the point and I didn't. My mistake. It
clearly would have been worth the 10 minutes to regroup and find the
point. Lesson learned. A time-out and a few moments of thought would
have been productive, especially in the middle of the night, when
judgment is at its worst. The night was cold and we were slowing down
so we took a 10 minute break at which Barb pulled out smoked salmon.
That got us going again. We navigated directly via compass bearings
to the remaining points with no problem. We regrouped and on to 77
and 97 as it began to get light, then 66 to 96 at 0640. Our intention
had been to continue W on the N perimeter but we decided to be
conservative and start back towards the HH. We took a few moments to
map a route back, examining various options depending upon the time.
This took us to 74, 60, 32, and 30 at 0915. We dropped our packs for
a quick out and back to 40 and then across the finish at 1035. A
conservative estimate (nearly straight line between points) puts our
distance traveled at 68.5km or 42.5 miles. With a total score of
1950, that amounts to 2.86 km/hr and 28.43 points/km.
We had a great time. Looking back and second-guessing, our main
conclusion was we could have pushed harder and gone faster. We felt
our route and navigation went really well (Oh yeah, there was 58). We
were too conservative in our overall pace and we went for a safe
conservative finish rather than going for one or two more points on
the N boundary. We worked really well together as a team. Barb was
great a holding a precise line going for 1-2 km bearings and arriving
within 50m or closer of the control point. I was best at following
the lay of the land. It was a complementary synergy. It turned out
that our route was nearly identical to the winning team, except they
were at control 97 as it got dark; we hit 97 as it was getting light.
 A
huge thank you to the race organizers, volunteers, and anyone else
who contributed to making this a well-run event. We are hooked on
rogaines and we'll be back. We wish to thank the sponsors of Team
Santa Fe http://www.teamsantafe.org) for the support and equipment
they provided. This includes Princeton Tec for headlamps, Niterider
for the 15 watt light we used to locate controls when we knew we were
close. Also Montrail, CamelBak, Boulder Bar, Thorlo, CW-X, Polar, Sof
Sole, Dermatone and Genesis Pharmaceutical Hydropel.
A week later, we continued our long training runs by doing
back to back trail runs in the Sandias. Saturday we ran
run the front side, up the La Luz trail to the top of the tram
and down Pino Canyon, 21 miles and 4000 vert. ft. for a time of 5:37.
Sunday, we explored the back side with a run up the S. Crest trail from
Tijeras to the radio towers and back, 32 miles and 6000 vert. ft. for
a total time of 9:07.
| 6th
World Rogaining Championships 2004 |
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White Mountains, Springerville AZ
May 8-9, 2004
http://rogaine.tucsonorienteering.org
105th overall, 59th mens
open
1450 points, 25 controls
Eric Jacobsen & Blair
Smith
I arrived in Eastern Arizona on May 8th for my first ever Rogaine.
And I picked a good one - a world championship where it seemed like
most people had English as their second language. I have navigated
many adventure races, but never before had I plotted a course for a
Rogaine. Another team from Seattle was particularly friendly and
helped explain the funny little symbols used in orienteering to
identify where each mark would be placed. After plotting my course in
about 15 minutes, I couldn't figure out why everyone else was taking 3
hours! Then, at 11am, we were off to our first control point. I
picked a relatively easy control which was close to the start. I
immediately got lost. Somehow, after about 20 minutes of
bushwhacking, I saw a shiny thing hanging on a tree. When I looked
closer, I realized I had stumbled onto my first control and my first
40 points. I wish I could claim it was great navigation, but it was
pure luck. In any case, I was now on my way.
The second control was on a bearing line into a field. We hit the
field about 20 feet away from the control - not bad for a mile long
bearing line. I was beginning to get the hang of it. After about 8
hours and several controls, we made our way back to the hash house
just as the sun went down. We had some great food, some coffee, a
change of clothes; we were off again for our second loop. Our first
loop took us significantly less time than I planned so I thought our
second loop would be the same. We decided to add a few extra controls
to the loop and still thought we would be back before the 24 hour time
limit with ease. Unfortunately, it didn't turn out that way. While
we never got lost after that first control, the course I plotted for
the second loop was through terrible terrain. At one point in the
middle of the night, we were on a 150 foot cliff scaling boulders the
size of my house trying to get to a riverbed. While it wasn't the
fastest section, it sure was fun. The moon was beautiful, the stream
was running below us, the boulders were challenging, we were well fed,
and we had a blast. Because of the slow going in the second loop, not
only did we not get to the extra controls we added, but we had to skip
a few in order to get back in time in order to avoid any late
penalties. We had worked hard for our points and we didn't want to
lose any of them by being late.
We arrived back at the hash house about 45 minutes before the time ran
out which gave us clean access to the food table at the hash house
(most teams were still on the race course.) While our score wasn't
very high, we had a great time. My partner was able to learn how to
navigate, I learned that I should spend more than 15 minutes plotting
my course, and we met some fantastic people in the process. Overall,
I loved the Rogaine. In an adventure race, the course planners seem
to do everything than can to make the process unpleasant - start times
at 2am, checkpoints taking you on a course through the worst possible
terrain, over the worst elevation gains/losses possible, no food or
water, etc. In the Rogaine, the maps were outstanding, the hash house
was great, volunteers waited on us when we were in the hash house and
brought us food and drinks, the start time was fantastic, they
provided extra instructions on how to find controls, etc. I could get
used to these kinds of races!
Gear used: Leki poles, Bolle sunglasses, Thorlo socks, Princeton Tec
lights, CW-X tights, Hydropel, Platypus backpack, Suunto compass.
New
Mexico Orienteer's May Event
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Saturday May 15, 2004
Los Alamos, NM.
http://mouser.org/nmo/
Ries Robinson and Jan Bear
Ries and I thought we needed a little work on our orienteering so we
heard that a relatively new group; New Mexico Orienteer's was putting
on a small meet so we thought we would give a try. The course was in
the rugged burned area just north of Los Alamos. Thr green (advanced
course) that we did covered about 7K and about 1500 feet of climbing.
There were 16 CP's on the course and several other orienteering
courses were set in the same area, this was to cause some confusion as
the race progressed. We got off to a good start hitting the first
three points without difficulty. The four and fifth were slightly
harder to find but we weren't using our compass just following the
terrain from the maps. The same process continued for the next 3 CP's
but we were slowly performing more poorly. We did better for the next
3 CP's but then on CP # 12 we made a big mistake in our map reading
and spent about 20 minutes off track, finally we corrected our mistake
and found the CP. For CP 13 we made another mistake, there was a CP
in the general area but it didn't seem correct but we tagged our card
anyway, unfortunately the CP's were not marked as to the color course
or CP #, so we thought it was just slightly mis-placed. We finished
the course finding several extra CP's along the way for the other
courses, so at this point we felt like maybe we had made an error at
CP 13. Indeed we had so we finished with a DNF but had a great time.
The course took us about 2 hours and 15 minutes to complete. The New
Mexico Orienteer's put on a very fun challenging event.
Thanks to our TSF sponsors for help with gear during this event.
18th
Santa Fe Century Bike Ride
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Sunday May 16, 2004
Santa Fe, NM
http://www.santafecentury.com
Lisa Carr-Broome and
George Broome
We were off to a rather late start this year...8am. This guaranteed
we would hit the wind at some point ensuring yet another great
training ride. After a slow start, we picked up our pace around mile
20 when we started climbing. We continued until mile 37 where we
began the slow steady 1/2 mile grind up Heart Break Hill. Once at the
top, it was a fast 22 mile downhill ride before turning into the wind
at mile 60. Feeling great we pushed and paced through the flats and
easy rollers for the remainder of the 102 mile ride, finishing with a
ride pace of 17mph.
The Santa Fe Century is a beautiful high desert ride beginning at
Capshaw Middle School in Santa Fe, continuing down the Turquoise Trail
through Madrid and Golden, crossing the Ortiz and San Pedro Mountains,
down into the Estancia Valley through Cedar Grove and Stanley,
continuing through Galisteo and El Dorado, skirting the foothills of
the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, and finishing where it all began.
Riding at an average altitude of 7000 ft. with a total elevation gain
of 4400 ft., it is considered a medium difficult century. Heat and
head winds are always challenges, especially with later starts. It is
a well supported event with sag wagons, medical and bike assistance,
as well as 6 well positioned and wonderfully stocked food stops
staffed with friendly and helpful volunteers. Thank you all who
worked so hard to make this a great experience.
We also want to thank all of our team sponsors for their support.
Gear used includes: CamelBak hydration packs, Suunto Advisor
wristwatch personal trainer with Polar HRM, Terry saddles, Bolle
sunglasses, and E-Caps Endurolytes.
| 18th
Santa Fe Century Bike Ride |
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Sunday May 16, 2004
Santa Fe, NM
http://www.santafecentury.com
Jan Bear, Kim Bear, Joel
Krypel, Deb Werenko, Gary Johnson, Jeffrey Potter
The Santa Fe Century is an annual training event for
TSF members.
This year the Century was again a fun training ride with the wind
being less of a problem this year than in years past. It was a very
nice day with some slight overcast to keep the temperature down and
very little wind. As in years past it looked like there were about
2500 riders that left the start line beginning as early as 6 AM. I
left about 7:30 with my neighbor and a couple friends from
Albuquerque. I had a great ride and finished in less than 5 hours.
Kim rode with several different students from her century training
class from the local community center. She was very pleased with how
well they all did. Joel and Deb rode together and had a great ride.
Gary rode alone and finished in less than 5 hours. Jeffrey Potter
rode alone and made the ride in about 6 hours. It was a great
training day for all.
Gear sponsors, CamelBak hydration packs, Polar HRM, Bolle sunglasses,
Litespeed bikes, Terry saddles, BTI bicycle parts, SixSixOne shoes
gloves, Shain helmets, CW-X bike clothing, E-caps, Boulder Bars and
Hydropel.
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