[ARDF] Cincinnati ARDF at East Fork SP, July 24...

[Matthew Robbins]

Today was our last practice event before Albuquerque, and Man!, was it
hot out there.

It was up-in-the-air whether it was even going to have it, but last
night I finally had three competitors who said they could make it (our
minimum to set is two competitors, usually), but we had to compromise
the start time. 9am would've been a lot cooler, but it just wasn't
possible, so 11am it was.

I started about 9:40am (later than I'd planned), and by 5pm at home, I
had drunk 4 Liters of water (well---1 of those was Gookinade).

Technical troubles made the course shorter and technically much easier
than it should have been, but the training and the heat (probably) are
good practice for Albuquerque.

The course was supposed to be 4.8-5.3 km, depending.  Due to the
shortened course, it was 3.6-3.9km.  Climb was 100-110m, although it
felt like a whole lot more, I'm sure, due to the heat.  It was pretty
dry, so traction on the slopes wasn't an issue.  I tried to piece
together the more open areas of the forest to simulate ABQ terrain,
but it was still pretty green out there.

Winner was Dick Arnett, although we didn't get times due to other
technical problems.

Second was Bob Frey, who got all the T's that were on (Four) in spite
of radio problems.  (He also was a really good sport about me calling
his house at 7am this morning to ask for the transmitters, although I
think we're both going to have to lie low for a while and wait a least
a month after Albuquerque before we even *think* about another ARDF
event.)

The team of Brian and Emily DeYoung got three of the four, missing a
fairly easy one due to not wanting to stay out in the heat any longer
(and taking off about 1.3km from the length).  (They started later due
to early morning tower work that took longer than expected.)

Oh, and 4 people made it, so that was a bonus. The biggest bonus of
all was the help from Dick getting controls out-of-the-woods. (And I'm
not complaining I didn't get more help, because it was the going-in
position that the others had commitments, and, obviously, sometimes
you just have to get them all yourself...)  After I got the last
control, I was just too hot.  (Busted a/c in car...), so without the
help, I would've been in big trouble.

Matthew
AA9YH
Cincinnati, Ohio