G'day Rogainers,
NSW Rogaining eNewsletter, 6th August 2020
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Compiled by Tristan White
Woronora Pipedream Results
People will not “pipe” down about what a great event last Saturday’s Woronora rogaine was, with plenty of dialogue on the website and Facebook page about route choices, challenges, and overall great vibes. The results for about 360 entrants over the three events are now on the website, where you can also view Julian Ledger's and Chris Stevenson’s write-ups of their experiences. Julian's post goes into detail about the pre-event training and event experience of their Men's Ultra Veterans team (all team members 65+ years of age).
Team “Rest in Pieces” Adam and Cooper Horley at the start
Here’s a few of the comments from the NSW Rogaining Facebook group:
- Our first go at rogaining last night 3hrs non-competitive and we had the best time ever, glad to hear we weren’t the only who had trouble finding 81 and moving on empty handed. Thanks for organising such a tops event, I think we are hooked!! (Jenny Trotter)
- We had so much fun. We will be back. AND we will know how to use a compass next time (Nicole Bunyon)
- We definitely took the road less travelled but had a blast. Thank you (Lisa McCue)
- How did the new Navlight punch holders go? Was punching really contactless, as hoped? We'd like to know how it worked for you, so we can make modifications if needed. (Mike Hotchkis) Fantastic Mike, just touched the top of a couple to slide them back into place. Great innovation and execution. (Brian Brannigan)
- Thank you to the organisers. What a stunning evening, under a near-full moon to get lost in the bush. Loved it! (Katherine Cameron)
- I also thought the organisers handled the Covid aspect extremely well. I was thoroughly impressed with that. (Simon Murphy)
- Did anyone get 81?? (Meela Davis)
Last year’s Nychtophobia champions, Mat Collin and Nikolay Nikolev, who successfully defended their title this year together with Aurelien Penneman share their experiences with me below:
TW: How did you choose your route at the start, and what changes did you have to make along the way?
MC: We originally planned to clear the course but took an anti-clockwise loop, to have a few different options returning from the western edge of the map in case we needed to drop controls. For the first hour we were on target, but then started to slip behind. We kept an eye on our progress so were able to drop some low controls in the middle, rather than high controls at the end.
TW: Were there any major blunders over the event that you made and how did you fix them?
MC: No major blunders - our biggest error was attempting to clear the course - we possibly could have skipped a few of the lower controls at the beginning, but no major harm was done. We did take a roundabout route to one of the easier street controls (CP30), which is a bit embarrassing for a mostly bush rogaine.
TW: If you had done the event in the daytime, is there any difference you would have made to navigation & route planning strategies?
MC: I'm not sure if we would have changed anything in daylight. We did note that the tracks to the north of the HH around 45, 35, 51 & 62 looked messy and might be best done first while there was still some fading daylight.
TW: Most competitive teams are made of 2 people, yet you managed to win as a team of three. How did you find being a team of that size and do you think it was easier, harder, or similar?
MC: I don't think having three people was an issue. Maybe five people in a team might become unwieldy.
AP: In daylight, we would have found easily how to cross the river between CP 102 and 65.
NN: As you well know, we didn't know there was going to be three of us until few hours before the event. I don't think that disadvantaged us, probably even the opposite – with three people you can take an occasional short mental break, knowing that the chances are that at least one of the other two will be on the top of their game. Having 3 people can also help with planning and with spotting some of the controls when you know you are in the area. Of course, that all relies on all of us having very similar level of fitness, which was the case for our team.
TW: What did you think of the course setting, and did you have any favourite controls?
MC: The course had quite a lot of ridges and creeks running parallel in a north-west direction. I think choosing the locations and times to cross these features was quite important. The course setters did well and I'm glad they put a lot of points at the western edge of the map to make the difficult (and wet) trip down to the river worthwhile. The description for control 90 was "Enjoy the Lookout" I forgot to do this - I'll have to go back and check it out in daylight. I want to say thankyou to Trevor, Brooner, Nicole, Mike, Anita and everyone who helped organise this in particularly difficult circumstances.
NN: I personally really enjoyed the course. The bush was lovely and the controls were so well placed – It was a great pleasure bashing off-trail through the night, especially when I haven't done a bush rogaine for almost a year. Loved 60, 70, 71, 72, 80 - just to name a few. Quite regret running out of time and skipping 81 and 63 at the end as they looked fun on the map too.
NSW Rogaining Champs 24/8h, Gundabooka NP, 5-6 Sept – Earlybird entries close Saturday!
This year’s NSW 24hr rogaining champs are going to be the quintessential Australian outback experience. To encourage people to commit early for the organising team, we have a significant earlybird discount.
Given the significant distance of from the “NSW” (Newcastle, Sydney, Wollongong) part of our state, we strongly encourage entrants to consider carpooling and share the driving and reduce fuel costs. Or even see if you can organise a proper trip away with other rogainers. Put your name and location on the Carpooling Service or Facebook to see what you can organise!
Volunteers Update
Thanks to all the volunteers who stepped up for the Woronora Pipe Dreams last weekend – I won’t name all 16, but check out the Volunteer page on the website to see who’s stepped up and intending to help out at in the future. You can also sign up here for any listed event. If you have any questions about volunteering, just drop Graham an email at volunteer@nswrogaining.org
MapRunF courses from previous events here.
Find us on Facebook and Strava here.
Regards,
Tristan White
on behalf of the NSW Rogaining Committee
publicity@nswrogaining.org