GNC 2024

Adalia Schafrath-Craig (YDP)

Over MLK weekend, the Georgia Orienteering Club hosted its annual GA Navigator Cup NRE at Red Top Mountain State Park. Twelve of our orienteering youth showed up to participate, including members from Georgia, the east and west coasts, and West Point. Lily Addicott (national team member) and Matt Craig (OUSA board member) organized a bake sale to raise money for the national youth team. Lily wrote, “Thank you to everyone who came to support the bake sale! It was a blast to help out.”

Despite the uncooperative weather (cold and rain), members who participated found some positives from the Friday middle distance race:

Ian Dunlap: On Friday, I was able to maintain a consistent speed while running for the most part.

Lily Addicott: It’s hard to say anything went right to be honest. I had a hard time finding the first control, and I forgot my orienteering shoes. Yes, I know, what a perfect day to forget your shoes. The only positive for me was the heater at the end. 

Shawn Mather: Friday’s Middle course was certainly my best race despite the aggressive rainfall. I started off slow and underestimated my distances for the first few points, but after about the 3^rd point, I felt very comfortable in the terrain and was able to navigate easily. This was my first Blue for an NRE, and while the rain made it outrageously cold, it helped me focus on navigating precisely and got me results I was happy with.

Paige Suhocki: The weather really didn’t want to cooperate during my race but I do think that this helped me in a way. I was forced to go a little slower because of the rain due to visibility so I was able to navigate smoothly. It was also just a really enjoyable course and when I thought about how cold I was, all I had to do was think about my friends back at home sitting in class.

On Saturday, the weather improved, although it was still cold and windy. There were some challenging legs for the youth:

Ian Dunlap: My hardest leg on Saturday was going to 16 because I made a silly mistake and took a wrong turn but I corrected quickly.

Lily Addicott: The most challenging leg on Saturday was 4-5. It was tricky if you didn’t have your map oriented properly the entire time duh, but still). The features in the circle were a little difficult to read at race pace, and it felt like it was stealthily placed so people would run right by it. 

Shawn Mather: The most challenging for me was 3-4 because while I thought I had a great route, the prevalence of water from Friday really made it challenging to know where the stream really was. I overshot 4 and it cost me a lot of time.

Paige Suhocki: Going to Control 6 (GreenY) was my biggest mess up. I wasn’t focused enough and cut off the trail too early which landed me in the reentrant south of 6. From there I thought that I was in the right area and started imagining gullies. But, once I screwed in my head and decided to read the map I recognized my silly mistake.

Adalia Schafrath-Craig: For Saturday, my most challenging leg was from 5 to 6. I must have aimed off the trail bend wrong because I ended up at the reentrant below the ditch, which was pretty frustrating.

Ava Suhocki: My most challenging leg on Saturday was 8 to 9. As you can see from my GPS, it was not difficult navigationally for me. It was physical! I went straight out of 8 toward 9 without even thinking about going around the climb. My results for this leg were not bad, but that reentrant definitely sapped a lot of energy out of me!

But there were also some legs which went well:

Lily Addicott: My favorite leg Saturday was this beauty from 14-15. The rest of this course was remarkably hilly, so it was nice to finally catch a break. The runnability was fantastic and there were so many features that kept you moving in the correct direction without much map contact.

Shawn Mather: My favorite leg on Saturday’s course was 16 to 17 because the first half was seemingly simple to get out of 16, but it became incredibly more complex after crossing the road. It really made me think for a moment about how I wanted to get to 17. 

Paige Suhocki: I would say I enjoyed control 11 (on the GreenY) the most because I was able to just follow the contours east until the road and when I got to the road I was right in front of the reentrant so I kept the hilltop to my left and the reentrant to my right.

Adalia Schafrath-Craig: It’s hard to pick a favorite overall leg, but my favorite part of the course was orienteering the last 300 meters or so of leg 7 to 8 because it went super smoothly. I took the spur northwest before cutting south along the outshoot and I found the control easily.

Ava Suhocki: My favorite leg on Saturday was 9 to 10. I liked this leg because of the amount of route choices available. During the race, I chose the first route I saw and I honestly had not really considered going any other ways. After the race, hearing how just about everyone in my family took a different route from one another on this leg was interesting to me. 

On Sunday, it was even colder than Saturday, but less windy. For many, Sunday was an exciting map:

Lily Addicott: My favorite Sunday leg was 3-4. Simply because when I was previewing these maps I wanted to run near those huge pits soooo badly. Cool feature for sure. 

Shawn Mather: My favorite leg was 3-4 because despite making many mistakes on this short leg, the terrain was very cool and incredibly distinctive.

Paige Suhocki: I enjoyed control #2 (GreenY) a lot. I was able to simplify the leg and only focus on what was necessary.

Adalia Schafrath-Craig: I liked control 3 to 4 on sunday because the navigation was a nice respite from the hilly-ness of many other controls. Also, there were some easy collecting features and handrails to follow, which I can’t complain about.

Ava Suhocki: I really liked 5 to 6. After having passed right by 5, convincing myself it wasn’t my control yet, I had already come across that path east of 5. After backtracking and punching 5, my run from 5 to 6 was made very easy!

But there were also some challenging legs for the team on Sunday:

Lily Addicott: The most challenging leg Sunday for me was two. Not only did I make a bad route, I also couldn’t find it in the circle. I ended up way south in a campground (when there was a perfect, gorgeous straight route!) and I worked my brain a little harder than was necessary. Once I got back on track, I found a different control before I found mine, so it knocked my confidence down a touch. 

Shawn Mather: The most challenging leg was 1-2 simply due to the great deal of complexity along the route. Even though I wasn’t at risk of getting lost, it certainly gave me a lot to consider as I was running. 

Paige Suhocki: Control #11 (GreenY) killed me. I know my GPS doesn’t look the worst thing in the world but I drove myself insane. When I saw a bunch of trailers I thought in my head “How the heck is all of this mapped?! I hate seeing civilization on my orienteering courses!” Yet all I had to do was realize that hmm things like that AREN’T MAPPED!

Adalia Schafrath-Craig: For Sunday, since my course overall went a million times better than Saturday, my most challenging leg was 13 to 14, where I decided to go straight up the hill. About halfway up, I was regretting my choice (especially since it was the end of the course) and wishing I’d taken the reentrant, which was 100 meters over.

Ava Suhocki: My most challenging leg on Sunday was 11 to 12. I started out strong on this leg, but lost contact with the map a bit after crossing the stream. I didn’t do a great job with reading the contours and rock features in this area, causing some confusion and definitely losing time.

On Monday, to finish up the events at Red Top Mountain, Vulcan Orienteering Club organized the Mal Harding Extreme-o, which several members participated in:

Lily Addicott: It went well! Ethan and I ran the short course with the fastest time. I felt like I had a huge advantage that I have trained on lots of white-out maps before, and Ethan and I worked well together as a team, and we beat West Point! 

Shawn Mather: The weather for the Extreme-O was much better than the last three days, and it was fun to just orienteer with some of my teammates. We didn’t take it too seriously, but having some other NT members there gave it a much greater sense of friendly competition (whether they knew it or not). It was a fun event, but it definitely made the weekend exhausting after four days.

Paige Suhocki: The Extreme-O was really fun! I did it with my sister Ava (team name: Contour Eaters) and we loved it! I had to take a very rough estimate for the azimuth control because I don’t have any degrees on my compass… but we did it.

Ava Suhocki: The Extreme-o was a blast! I went out with Paige and we had a really good time. We definitely learned a lot from each other. For some of the different types of maps, she and I came up with routes the other one of us had not thought of. It was very insightful and a fun experience!

During the weekend, the youth participants found some cool and interesting things and learned some new skills, in addition to having some excellent runs:

Ian Dunlap: I think the coolest part of Sunday was legs 4-10 orienteering around the cliffs.

Lily Addicott: I felt as though this weekend was a great example of when to go over the hill and when to go around. I feel that I really strengthened my contouring abilities, and I learned that I hate orienteering through the green! 

Shawn Mather: I learned a lot about route choice in Georgia’s terrain. The contours are much more dramatic than what I am used to in the northeast, and the woods are far more runnable. I found what strengths I have personally on this type of terrain and looking at the published RouteGadget helped me compare my routes to others. I have been getting much better at ignoring trails when they are irrelevant to my route and taking a more direct route when it is beneficial to, in addition to improving greatly at my contouring technique.

Ava Suhocki: I thought the plotting was really cool during the Extreme-o. We learned this at the meeting the evening before and had the opportunity to apply it during the race the following morning.

After participating in the GNC, members looked back to see what they want to work on for their next competition:

Lily Addicott: Sometimes I feel like I do not do a good enough job picking through my routes, and/or reading ahead. I just kind of point and shoot and run and look at my map when I have time, normally creating my routes on the spot. It’s an okay habit that keeps me moving fast, but I need to hone my route-selection skills.

Shawn Mather: One of the things I need to train more is holistically determining my route choice before I begin a leg. I had multiple occasions where I didn’t determine my full route until I was halfway through the leg, which limited my options on more advanced and technically challenging legs. The way I hope to train this is by planning ahead my first 200-400m before I punch any control.

Paige Suhocki: I have been working on simplifying the map and not worrying about the super fine details. This has been going pretty well so far but going to control #11 on Sunday I slipped back to my old habits, got caught up in insignificant details, confused myself, and lost a good bit of time. So this will be a skill that I still need to focus on.

Adalia Schafrath-Craig: Overall, after participating in GNC, I want to improve my route planning when it comes to hills. There were several times when I went over a hill, which probably would have been faster to go around, especially on Saturday, so I would like to become a better judge of that.

Ava Suhocki: Definitely hills! This is something I often discover in Georgia. I will certainly be incorporating more hill workouts into my training.

Overall, our members did great during this cold, windy weekend, concluding the first NRE of 2024 and raising over $800 from the bake sale!