Orienteer Your Snowballs Off 6 Hour ROGAINE

January 7, 2012
Rev3/MK Racers: Britt and Cory Mason

Race Report by Britt Mason

Early Saturday morning, my brother Cory and I traveled to Rock Cut State Park in Loves Park, Illinois, for the inaugural Orienteer Your Snowballs Off, a 6 hour ROGAINE orienteering race. The day promised to be gorgeous for Illinois in winter, with temps getting up into the 40s and sunny. We received our map and worked out a route, planning to try to clear the course. The race would consist of 43 CPs with a 6 hour cutoff. After a brief pre-race meeting, we were off!

The navigation proved challenging right from the start, as all trails were removed from the map, and points were plotted using GPS. In addition, the park had very little elevation change, so the topography was subtle to say the least. About an hour into the race, we found ourselves searching for a CP with another team, Heather and Rich from Eyes of the World/Team Randomocity. After 20 minutes with no success, we realized we needed to move on if we were going to manage our time well for the rest of the race. We had even gone to the next CP to use it as a reference and come back. We decided to press on, effectively beginning a great partnership with Heather and Rich for the rest of the day. Cory and I have never raced with anyone else or partnered with another team. We had a blast feeling like a 4-person team and spending time with a couple of awesome racers. On several occasions, the vegetation was so dense we literally had to army crawl to get through it. I'm sure taking trails would have been faster, but without knowing the trail system in the park, we had no choice. The course itself was fantastic, taking teams through the entire park and creating endless route choices. Getting to some of the CPs was interesting and included: climbing a tree, crawling into a tiny cave, walking out on a fallen tree above the thin ice of the lake, and running in the frigid water through a long culvert and back.

As the hours slipped by, we had to make a couple of route choices to skip CPs in order to beat the cutoff. We crossed the finish line with Heather and Rich with less than 10 minutes to spare. We cleared 35 of 43 CPs and effectively tied for 3rd place. We covered 17-20 miles for day on foot and had a great time doing it! Next up is the Bonk Hard Chill in Lake of the Ozarks, MO, on February 18. Hope to meet you all at the Epic!