Nov. 9 – 15, Tawasentha Park Results

Tawasentha Event Report & Participant Comments

EMPO’s third and final autumn “No-contact” event came off fine. There was some better weather, some new participants, and the return of some we haven’t seen for a while. Not that we saw any of them, due to the restrictions forced upon us by the virus. A few folks reported that they did cross paths, but I personally was never there between placing the ribbons and picking them up.

The UsynligO app works pretty well, but it’s not perfect. It miss-reports some things and doesn’t report others. The results that have been posted are the best I could make out from the app, and adding or correcting on the basis of what participants told me about their times.

A couple of notes on the courses and how they were run/walked:

Yellow/White – The control at the well may have been too difficult for this course. Many had trouble with it (including some on the higher courses). It was visible from the trail if you looked in the correct direction at the right time, but if you went into the woods too soon or too late, it was very hard to find.

Brown/Orange and Red/Green – I had wondered if anyone would try and succeed going along the Normanskill between #40 & #41. The Brown/Orange course had it going north; the Red/Green had it going south. [As a side note: this would not be acceptable course setting for an A Meet; but with our limited numbers, especially now, I thought it was OK.] I have one recorded try and then bail-out, and one successful passage. In setting the courses, I never tried it, and Sue H-T on her course went back up and around. While picking up the ribbons today, I peeked at the south end, and it seemed passable, but I still went up and around to get back to my car.

I hope everyone had fun. The photos of the Miller/Solot kids show that they certainly did!|

See you in the snow, or if not, then next Spring (which WILL come).

-Phil H-T

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I pretty much followed the river between 40 and 41 , there was a bit of a track worn in on the side of the hill most of the way.
Bruce Shenker

Nina and I had fun on the Yellow course. We took a detour to the playground prior to the last couple controls because a high school cross country race finish area blocked us from getting to the 2nd to last control for about 20 minutes.  When they finished we were able to finish. We did not have problems finding the well. The most challenging was control 5 on the tree roots, but Nina persevered and found it.
Doug Swank

The combination of ribbons + app is great! Ribbons for not relying on the app entirely to know you’re at a control, and app for giving hints if one is stuck (particularly when we sent the 11 and 12 year olds off together on their own). It was a pretty informal experience, including “competitors” who chose to roll between controls. No times to report, but good times definitely had.
Marshall Miller

I ended up running the Red/Green course. It was a good one! Although 11 gave me trouble. I think I’ll run the others for fun later if they are still on UsynligO.
Anthony Loccisano

Tyler beat me!
He started at 7:51:00 on the brown course. with a challenge to see how many controls he could get before I caught up to him.  
Great course!  Great map!  Great morning! Good to see Tyler’s smirk! …and home before the sprinkles!
He said he heard me coming as I was approaching 8 and he was off to 9.  He must have quickened his pace.
The only thing EMPO didn’t do this year was our annual meeting.
Who cares?
Eric Hamilton