What orienteering in Connecticuts looks like.
Event organizers arrive early to set up for registering participants.
While this event at Brooksvale Park qualifies as a National Ranking Event (NRE) with advanced courses, easier recreational courses are set up for casual or beginner participants.
Serious competitors registered in advance and may proceed directly to the Start station.
Competitors ready to begin are released in intervals to advance toward stations to pick up maps and clue sheets.
Five different courses begin near here. A participant picks up the course map with the expectation not to exam it until after starting.
The next step is to fetch a Clue Sheet. This interval clock is set to beep every 60 seconds.
Clue Sheets describe features near each control on the course.
While the clues are printed on the maps, many competitors like to mount a separate Clue Sheet to a wrist for easier reference when racing.
To give each competitor at the outset his or her own space to start and disappear on to the course without being seen by the next competitor, each is released to advance to the Start Control at intervals.
Go!
Once you have "punched" the Start control you are permitted to examine your map.
Serious competitors may come from afar to run in a NRE.
Running is not required. Here a couple set out on one of the shorter courses as a team to enjoy an adventure in the woods.
He has decided which way to go and sets off into the woods.
He's spotted his next control and dashes to it.
Having "punched" the control he immediately turns to head off to the next one.
Thinking of following her to your next control? She may be on a different course heading to a different control.
A delightful view for leaf-peepers but probably missed by runners racing to their next control.
Eight different courses through the woods were set for this event. All end here.
The Finish is approached with endearing and varied expressions of joy, relief, determination. and exhaustion.
run_to_finish
After punching the Finish control to log the time on the SI Stick, competitors then stop their own timers/GPS trackers.
Now the trading of stories begins.
Results
Event directors want to know that everyone who started has reported back and been accounted for.
The End.
Photography and production by Bill Duncan
