Pictures from fieldwork for Desert Run

Fieldwork during wintertime is harder than in summer, but there are no rattlesnakes. In other words - work with maps and courses is happening in a good pace - we are very happy about that. Some more visits are planned. Here are some teaser photos. The weather was OK - a bit under freezing; snow was around 2 inches or so. First picture - view of Saddle Mountain from the new map by Beverly, WA. The rest - pictures from/around the Bishop's land map.

Pictures from terrain for Day 2, Desert run 2016

Pictures by unknown photographer from Jourdan Harvey's camera. Runners - Jourdan Harvey and Hannah Culberg. More information on the race here.

Desert Run 2016

There is some progress! Registration open, insurance acquired, preliminary permissions acquired. Work on Crab creek map in progress. Here is a small sample of what is there:

5m contours; rough open land; some cliffs; some gentle land forms. Some sage bush and few trees.
More information on the race available here.

Season of 2016

The season of 2016 is starting to take shape. We are aiming for a race every two weeks, starting May and ending in First half of September.

Likely dates will be

1. May 5
2. May 19
3. June 2
4. June 16
5. June 30
6. July 14
7. July 28
8. Aug 11
9. Aug 25
10. Sep 8

Current completely non-confirmed ideas is to have 2 or 3 races in Bridle trails, 1 or 2 in Redmond Watershed, 1 in St Edward.

We are also looking for other locations and need to investigate the following - Grand Ridge, Squak and Cougar Mt, Sammamish State Park, Paradise Valley Conservation area, Soaring Eagle, and some others. 

Apart from that we are also looking into producing 2 orienteering races - currently the feasibility is in investigation.

See you in the Forest in 2016!

Thank you! - Redmond Watershed results

Here are the results. Or here, in a slightly harder to read form:

Results – Redmond Watershed, Sep10, 2015
2015-09-10
Short			(1 / 1)		Time		Behind
1.	Gustavo De Camargo		CAPE		23:11
	8:18 (8:18)	4:21 (12:39)		7:44 (20:23)		2:48 (23:11)
Long			(8 / 8)		Time		Behind
1.	Reinis Znotins		Exonicus		33:07
	6:32 (6:32)	6:50 (13:22)		5:57 (19:19)		5:35 (24:54)		5:52 (30:46)	2:21 (33:07)
2.	Janis Kondrats		Exonicus		33:12		+0:05
	6:34 (6:34)	6:53 (13:27)		5:56 (19:23)		5:36 (24:59)		5:52 (30:51)	2:21 (33:12)
3.	Brian Evans		Stella's Fellas		34:31		+1:24
	6:34 (6:34)	7:36 (14:10)		6:16 (20:26)		5:19 (25:45)		6:45 (32:30)	2:01 (34:31)
4.	Atis Barzdins		First Hill		36:17		+3:10
	6:55 (6:55)	7:40 (14:35)		6:33 (21:08)		6:10 (27:18)		7:01 (34:19)	1:58 (36:17)
5.	John Tholen		No club		39:04		+5:57
	8:05 (8:05)	8:14 (16:19)		6:40 (22:59)		6:05 (29:04)		7:16 (36:20)	2:44 (39:04)
6.	Thomas Reutter		No club		39:28		+6:21
	8:09 (8:09)	8:28 (16:37)		7:07 (23:44)		6:19 (30:03)		7:02 (37:05)	2:23 (39:28)
7.	Alfred Hellstern		No club		39:35		+6:28
	8:06 (8:06)	8:27 (16:33)		7:08 (23:41)		6:18 (29:59)		7:08 (37:07)	2:28 (39:35)
8.	Sandis Kondrats		Exonicus		41:06		+7:59
	7:19 (7:19)	9:23 (16:42)		8:27 (25:09)		6:19 (31:28)		6:56 (38:24)	2:42 (41:06)

Final notes for Redmond Watershed, Sep 10, 2015

Course notes

The course is very fast - 3.2km and 5.7km. The courses have few turns, but out from the start and into the finish is on the same trail - you may see people running against you, please be careful. Short course - 3 controls. Long course - 5 controls.

No sample course this time.

Trails are not closed for other users.

Weather

Weather.com believes that it will be sunny; 78degF. NO RAIN. 

Start window

Start will be open 4pm to 6:30pm. Finish open 4pm to 7:30pm. Course pick-up will start at 6:30.

Map

Parking&Directions

Parking is South entrance of Redmond Watershed Preserve from Novelty Hill Road.

Day-of registrations

Absolutely possible. 11$. See you on the trails!

Final race of the season - Redmond Watershed, Sep 10

The Redmond watershed race is very close. Race page is here. Note that the start is open 4:00pm to 6:30pm. Weather is promised to be excellent.

Courses

The courses have very little elevation and will very fast. We expect a 24 minute or so winning time for the long 5668m course; it will be a fast time for the short course of 3215m as well.

Bears

There have been some sightings of bears in Redmond Watershed park. In case that happens, King5.com suggests: "If Redmond residents encounter the bear, they can avoid an attack by remaining at a distance, creating loud noise, making themselves look as big as possible by spreading their arms, removing food items that may have initially attracted it to the area, and standing still if a bear does charge."

It is quite unlikely you will get to see one though.

What after this?

This is the last race of the pilot season. We will continue next summer - likely May to September season; more precise information will be available later.

See you on the trails!

St Edward results & re-cap

Here are the results!

Analysis

The most interesting legs of the race are 33-34, also known as the hill and leg 35-Finish. 

The hill leg correlates well with overall results except for Rosemary and Julie who were faster in this leg than Debbie and Sandis, who were both faster overall. Zach from short course takes the 4th place in these splits.

The finish is another game! Here Atis and Sandis ended close together forcing each other to do their best, resulting in 1:04 split for Sandis and 1:06 for Atis which matched 1:06 by the overall winner of the long.

The full results do not reflect the race in the womens' field very well. Debbie won it by 4 minutes: congratulations!

What regards long course winner Janis splits - they are somewhat stable, but there are also three splits where he does not take the first place.

Re-cap

The weather co-operated. Promised rain all day yet it delivered none till after the course setup. The courses were impacted by the storm just a little bit. 

The courses were quite hard yet the runners enjoyed them.
All people finished with full courses - we blame improved checkpoint and trail markings. Of course, there were quite many repeat forestrunners - out of 10 participants 5 had done a Forest Run before.
Thank you and see you in Redmond Watershed!

Volunteers

Murray helped a lot with picking up courses; Lisa and Gunta helped with tear down of the tents; Vija watched them while course was being set. Thank you!

Final notes for tomorrow

This might be the last post before results; we are ready to go.

Course

The long course goes down, level, up, level, down, up, level. The short - down, level, up, level. The last up will be hard. If you can run-run it, you will most likely be close to top in results.

The course will be slippery on the downhills. Small-spike shoes might be useful.

Other people will be on course; please respect them.

Start will be open from 3pm to 6:45pm. Finish open till 7:30pm.

Weather

Current forecast is some rain. 0.2 inches total tomorrow in Kirkland. We will have 2 tents.

Parking

Discover pass needed! Once parked - look for the white tents. Start and finish are not at the tents.

Day-of registration

11$. But please take your time to come - you will need to fill/sign registration and waiver.

Special thanks

To rangers of the park - without their chainsaw skills the course would be usable for some other type of race, not a run.

St. Edward race is this Thursday!

Course notes

The forest has suffered some wind damage, but the trails have been almost fully cleared. There are some trees still down, but you can certainly go either over or under them. The race is on!

The course is somewhat simple in terms of junctions and turns, but has one large climb for short course; two large climbs for long course. It is likely some hiking will happen there.

The start is in a different location than the finish. See the map.

Finally, there is one location where course will go around some wind debris, please do not shortcut - it is for your safety.

Short course is 3300m, long course is 5924, not accounting detour around the debris.

Improvements

We are changing the course markings a bit:

1. The orange flags will denote the long course.
2. Red flags - the short course only where it does not match the long course. For a very short distance.
3. Checkpoints will have a preceding exclamation mark (!) sign some 20-30 feet before them.
1. Some CPs were missed last time.
4. Start and finish will not have a sign on them, but instead by them.

We are also improving the registration - instead of one clipboard, there will be three. 

It is unclear whether we will have a demonstration course. It is likely we will have a very small one.

For fastest experience we suggest printing and signing the waiver before you arrive.
We will likely have punch box per stand - this way they will be awake after the first runner. 

Map

Map is exported at 300dpi for 1:10000 scale. This is the working copy with all markings.

Finally

The registration is available here.

St. Edward State park (and other) updates

This has been quite a busy weekend:

1. We went to St. Edward State Park to look at wind damage after Saturday's storm.
1. Northern part of the course is very OK.
2. Southern Ridge trail has suffered at its lower end a lot
1. Rangers are doing their job there, but they have their hands full with the whole park
2. We will assess it in full on Monday and make some improvements where needed
3. Likely we will have to return on Wednesday for more
2. We have finished the trail markings for the Thursday race - quite a few new, mostly to improve the communication about an upcoming checkpoint.
3. We also went to Redmond Watershed.
1. We finished measuring the courses.
1. It is likely we will have to shorten them. As drawn the short course is around 5k which is too much for our standard.
2. No real wind damage observed there.

Finally, a teaser from previous race (by Atis Barzdins):

A recorded run

Jourdan Harvey recorded his winning run on Long course. And then shared it with us: I hope you enjoy it as much as I do!

Results for Bridle trails

Results

Results are here! Let us know if there is some mixup with names or times.
In short course Breseman family dominated. In long course Jourdan was fastest by quite a lot, taking all legs first. Mark Plesko was near, but missed a checkpoint.
We took the freedom of moving Paul and Janis to short course - because they got to all controls although taking some long side steps. Some photos will be shared through here likely tomorrow.

How it went

Weather was really nice; a bit warm. 

Technically - course was ready around 2pm or so; some small software glitches, but everything else went as planned. 

Volunteers: Gunta helped with course setup; Atis helped with photos and taking tent etc. down; Murray picked up the controls and basically enabled the results be published before 10 pm. Paula helped with reconstructing the course after some disturbances - there were some issues with random people picking up some markings. If you see a marking in the bushes, let us know - we will pick them up.

Improvements

We will add some additional flagging around checkpoints to make them more visible. Likely green flags.

What next?

St Edward State Park! Sep. 3, Thursday.

Thank you!

We very much appreciate you all being at the first Forest Run. We hope you liked to Run a Forest Run! 

We are looking for any feedback; leave a message here in comments; send email; post on facebook.

Last minute updates for Bridle trails

Everything is ready for the race:

1. Course markings are ready to go on the trails
2. Weather is really fine.
3. Computer systems are prepared
4. Bags are packed
5. Oranges have been acquired
6. 5 checkpoints for LONG course
7. 3 for SHORT

On-site registration will be available, but we might have issues with change. Please plan accordingly.
See you on the trails!

Bridle trails race is soon!

We have been fairly active these days:

• Generator/live results/download/printout setup is tested
• Checkpoints/start/finish have been put together
• 75 confidence markers have been made
• Directions signs have been laminated
• Weather has been negotiated good: 10-20% rain, pretty warm.

Oh, what is that? That's a teaser of the course in a form of the map with all additional information:

Finally, we have been fairly active with St. Edward and Redmond watershed races as well - St. Edward has been fully measured while Watershed is at least partially done.
See you in the forest!

Bridle trails race updates

Bridle trails course has been finalized and measured. See updated map here. Course lengths are 6212 meters and 3326 meters.
Course markings have been designed and will be finished this weekend.
See you in the forest!

Redmond Watershed race announced!

Race page here, and registration here!
This is the last race of our pilot season. It also has shorter start window.

Waiver

Here is the current trail-running waiver. The reference to Orienteering USA is because our insurance is organized through them.
Here is our O' waiver for Desert Run 2016.

Registration open: St Edward State Park

Race page and registration is open.

Registration open!

Achievement unlocked: race page/registration is open for the first race of Forest Runs: HERE.

On the price of weeknight runs for 2015

• We want the price of the weeknight races be not the blocking factor for an entry. 
• We understand that the concept of open start window is new for trail running.
• We also have some expenses.
• Therefore the price is set to be 11$ including sales tax.
• if the price seems too high (are you retired? are you coming as a family of 3? are you younger than 18? are you a student?), please let us know and we will adjust it on individual basis
• Which makes it be 10.05$ of price and 0.95$ of sales tax.

[almost] Good to go

Some paperwork is still in progress, but: the first Forest Run will happen on August 27th, Bridle Trails State Park; we have preliminary approval from the ranger!

• Start window: 3pm to 6:45pm. 
• Distances: 6k&3k.
• Work in progress:
• insurance; FR is trying to become a member of O USA. 
• We are working on registration
• there will be some spots for day-of registrations, 
• not sure how much though

More progress

- We have chosen date for the first event: August 27th.
- We have sent an application to the ranger, waiting for comments back.
- We have a course design. 6k and 3k.

Some progress with administrativia

Achievement unlocked

• Forestruns.com domain name is active now; redirecting to blog.forestruns.com.
• Paypal business account registered. Great!

Pending

• LLC documentation not yet there
• Location permits pending

Decisions

• We will use O' USA insurance services
• We will use Webscorer.com for registration till a better system is set up.
• A better system will likely be a custom webpage.
• For results we will use winsplits.

This is how we roll

What will we do

Back home in Europe there exists a certain set of competitions for running in forests in evenings. Good time measurement for everyone, but a time window for starts. There is nothing similar here of a large scale. We will try to create this market in Greater Seattle.

How?

This year we are trying to put on 3 of these open-window races; gather feedback; get understanding whether the market actually exists here as hoped for. If that works - more races to come next year.

When?

We are currently looking for late August/September time-frame. However, park permitting is a potential blocker.

Progress

Domain name is secured; LLC registration is in progress.

Will you run it?

The target audience should be pretty much everyone who has some time to run from 3pm to dusk. We hope to keep the price of this small, comparable to a lunch.