[ARDF] How did I do in Brno?

[Matthew Robbins]

Someone asked me how I did in Brno.  Normally, I'd be asleep right
now, but I got home a little after 1am, and since I was really tired
during the drive, I massively overconsumed caffeinated beverages. 
Someone asked me how I did, and I decided to write two or three
paragraphs and then go to bed...

Now it's 3 hours later, and after I hit send to answer that person, I
decided the folks on the ARDF list might want to see it too:

I'm actually proud of my performance, even though I did pretty poorly.
 On my first day, I did 80m.  I got all five Ts, but I overtimed by 86
seconds.  Which really hurt.  Luckily Vadim and Csaba both finished,
so we protected our team score (you need 2 finishers on each day for a
valid team score) (that's within each age category---We were M21).

Here's a map to follow along: 
Day 1 80m Map: http://arg.hamradio.si/2004/12wardf/12WARDF-1kv_map.htm

The maps are big.  The magnetic north lines are the standard 500m
apart.  The scanned ones on these links are smaller than actual size.

The "leg" to the finish really surprised me.  All the controls were
200m or more higher than than finish.  So at my last control, I had
over 200m of descent to do.  As I found the transmitters, I hadn't
taken a good look at the approach to the finish, other than to notice
there seemed to be plenty of trails/roads to get me to the finish, so
it would be no problem, right?.  After I punched my last T, 5 (80m), I
egressed the control location so as not to aid anyone, then I looked
at the leg to the finish.  It would've been a decent long leg on any
O'course.  About 1900m long, and the big trails I noticed earlier were
on the wrong side of a big reentrant, so they weren't useful.  I
picked what I thought was the best way, then I executed it just a
little too slowly.  If you look at my times, I tended to be quite
slower than the average leg time.  On my way to 5, I had a good
crossing, so I ran trails, and got there not below the average, but
closer to the average than my previous 4 controls.  On the finish leg,
with only orienteering to do, I was still slower than average, but
again closer to the average than my first 4 Ts.  I stopped several
times to look at my map (which I kick myself for), but overall, the
leg was just a little slower than I expected, and I hadn't allowed
enough time.  I got hung up in some fight going into 5 for a good 5
minutes, and I should've bailed out sooner.

Looking at it another way, the fastest time to the finish was just
under 10minutes for about 2km, or 5min/km.  I did 25min, or
12.5min/km.  Which is just about as good as I do.  I've decided to
become a runner again.  I did track (Mile) and cross-country (5K) in
high school.  If you're fit, you can spank these courses.  Rather than
be spanked by them.

One thing I've been dying to say about the Day 1 finish is that I
think the organizers planned a terrible finish.  Every once in a while
on a course, usually when I'm descending a really steep slope way too
fast, I realize I could hurt myself really bad.  This finish was like
that.  It kept going through my brain that I could die right there. 
At that time, I had about 90 or 120 seconds left, so I just went for
it.  My shoes stuck like glue on the dirt.  If it had been a little
bit wet, I think a bunch of people wouldn've gotten hurt.

I hit the beacon with maybe 60 seconds left, then I had to go down a
contour line to a stream crossing.  I heard the announcer say, "And
now, at the beacon, Matthew Robbins of the United States."  The stream
was over a foot deep; I hit it going just under full speed; and I
almost fell when I hit the water.  It was something I will never
forget because there were about 20 people there yelling at me, and a
whole bunch of flashes went off when I hit the water.  Maybe 8?  I had
tunnel vision.  (I think people mistook my uniform for some other
country.  I wasn't wearing the normal USA uniform, with the red and
white stripes on the shoulders.  I think my subdued red white and blue
"uniform" resembled several other countries', including the Czech
Republic's.)  I then had to go up one really steep contour line, then
down 3 BIG steps (50cm each--about 20 inches?), which were the stadium
seats, to a really nice cinder track.  I was running on the track; I
looked over to the finish; saw it was about 300m.  I turned over my
left wrist and saw I had 30 seconds left.  Instant deflation.  I know
I can't do 300m in 30 seconds.  That would be a world-class time. I
know I can't make it.  But I'm still running.  I turn over my right
wrist, and look at my heart-rate monitor.  196.  I just instantly
started walking.  When I train, anything over 180 scares me.  196 is
the highest I've seen in at least 8 years.   In California, I got to
189 as I was finishing.  If I had any chance of making my time, I
would've kept running---They had a doctor at the finish.  I ran in the
last 150m or so.  I heard Dennis, Jay Hennigan's mom, and one more
American (non-competitor) (whose name escapes me) yelling at me as I
was running in, and it really meant a lot to me, because I was pretty
down.

Day 2 2m Map: http://arg.hamradio.si/2004/12wardf/12WARDF-2ukv_map.htm

Realize that I've only been doing ARDF for 18 months when I say this:
Day 2, which for M21 was 2m, was the hardest ARDF course I've ever
run.  It's the first course I've run where I didn't get all the Ts.  I
expected going into this, the World Championships, that the course
distance would be beyond my fitness level.  I expected to have to skip
controls to finish in time.  But on this course, the most notable
thiing was the control placements.  The placements were very
challenging.  Almost all of the control locations were high up, but in
places where you didn't have line-of-sight signals from the start.  So
pretty much everything was a reflection or so far off it sounded like
a reflection. If you were in a low spot, which you often were, the
reflections were all over.  I made some bad choices early on and had
to climb 4 medium-to-big hills to get to my first control.  Just that
one took 56 minutes or so.  I got the next one, 3, pretty quickly
after that, maybe 17 minutes.  After I left 3 I was on the top of a
hill next to a huge reentrant that split the map, and that location
let me finally get bearings I could trust for my last three controls.
(What I'm saying is I went half of my allotted time with almost no
decent bearings.)  2 and 5 were on the far side, near the finish, so I
went to 4.  I thought it was on the same hill I was on, but it wasn't.
 I spent maybe 20minutes getting to another enormous reentrant, and 4
was on the far side.  It looked like about 100m of climb, and I knew I
needed all I had left to climb to the finish, so I skipped 4.  I knew
2 was a long way away, and I knew I couldn't get it because of the
time.  I had a good crossing for 5, and it was near the finish, so I
went for 5.  When I got to my crossing, having been in the shadow of
the hill as it was transmitting last, I was waiting for it to come on
again, and I noticed an 80m runner, and then another, and then a
third.  I knew I was near the finish, but I took all these 80m runners
to be a bad sign.  I popped into the woods and saw an 80m control,
which meant, Damn!, my 5 had to be over 400m away.  Looking at the
finish exclusion circle and eyeballing the circle for the 80m control
near me, I thought I knew where my 5 was, and I took off.  It came on,
but I didn't have a clean shot at it, so I just kept moving.  I was
looking at the finish beacon location, and the time.  It was about 13
minutes until I overtimed.  5 would come on in 2 minutes, and at that
time, I'd have 11 minutes to finish.  I was standing about 800m away
from the actual finish line.  So I figured if I was lucky, 5 would be
within 150m of me; I'd get it in a minute or so, and have 10 minutes
to go about 1000m.  Which is completely doable.  No problem.  (It
looked a lot easier than the descent into Day 1, where I did 12.5
min/km.  Here, I'd have to do 10min/km.)

So at 11 minutes before I overtime, 2 hours 19 minutes into my race,
yagi over my head, back and forth, 5 comes on.  I look at my blue
Australian radio for the attenuator setting (which gives me a distance
estimation) and it was on "4".  If it were on 5, it would mean I was
228m or closer, and I'd go for it.  But the range of 4 lasts from 228m
up to about 700m, and I just couldn't take the chance.  So I turned
around and headed for the finish.  I finished with 3 minutes to spare,
with 2 transmitters.  I was again really upset with myself, but after
I thought about it, I wasn't.  The course was extremely long.  Almost
no one, including the gold medalist, got the order right.  It was,
I'll say again, the hardest ARDF course I've ever seen, both
physically with the distance and climb, and with the difficulty of the
transmitter placements.

It was good that I was conservative with my 3 minutes-to-spare,
because our number 1 guy on M21, Vadim, overtimed by 10 minutes or so.
 That meant the team results were calculated from Csaba's and my time,
and w00t!, we had a valid team score.  Woohoo!

Again, hindsight 20/20, I screwed up 5 big time.  First, I was using
the calibration distances from Marvin's US Champs event, and the Czech
radios were weaker.  So my 228m for a indication of 5 and 700m for 4
are too long.  I'm almost certain that if I'd run at Transmitter 5 for
a few steps the indication would've stepped up to five.  It was just a
little over 100m away (but I didn't know that).  I think if I'd taken
10 or 20 steps toward it, my radio would've gone to an indication of
5.  When I see a five on the radio, I run like hell.  Or the closest
approximation that my large belly and me can get to running like hell.

I love ARDF.  It is so interesting.  Other than fitness, the one thing
I want to improve is my ability to think more quickly about tactics. 
I keep thinking of ways I could've saved 86 seconds on day one.  There
are so many ways.  My big problem was underestimating the difficulty
of the finish leg.  I took a really good route, but I didn't know I
was in deep trouble until 10 minutes from the finish when I saw my
progress was too slow.  When I was struggling through the fight into
5, I should have realized I was in trouble.  On Day 2, I tell myself
that if I had put together some information that was right in front of
me just a little bit faster, I could've gotten 3 transmitters for
sure.  For me to have gotten 4, I think I would have needed more
experience.  I've noticed that the high-up/no direct line-of-site
transmitter placement is often difficult, but I'm used to seeing no
more than 1 or 2 per course.   (I put one of these on a course I set
just before the US Championships this year, and I was really surprised
how out-of-the-way the competitors went to get it.)  I really want to
set out some transmitters and do some serious testing so I can better
sort out the signal from the reflections.

This was my first trip out of North America, and it was great.  I had
so much fun.

Matthew
AA9YH
Cincinnati, Ohio USA