Junior Training Camp, Blue Mountain, March 2012

by Isabel Bryant

The training camp was held at Blue Mountain in Peekskill NY on March 24th and 25th, 2012.  It was run by Erin Schirm with help from Janet Porter, Neil Dobbs, Jeff Saeger, Judy Karpinski, Barb Bryant, Tim Parson, Bernie Breton, Mr. Barker, and maybe some other people.  

Unfortunately, at the last minute the lodging fell through, and the organizers had to restrict attendance to only the advanced juniors.  So kids working on white, yellow and orange couldn’t come.  There were about 20 juniors there, including some cadets from West Point.

I drove down with my mom and my friend Rachael Harkavy.  At one point we heard that the training was only going to be on Saturday, so we planned for that, which meant we couldn’t stay for the morning training on Sunday.

The first exercise on Saturday was corridor orienteering:  about 3.5 kilometers, where most of the map had been whited out except for a narrow strip.  I thought this was supposed to be a compass exercise, but for me it was mostly a feature-reading exercise.  I did this together with Evalin Brautigam.  Working with her was pretty easy, we worked well together. Most of the time we switched off leading the legs.

Next we focused on contours, and went solo using a map that had only contours and a few of the major trails.  I did fine for the first three controls, but had a lot of trouble with the fourth one.  It was good practice simplifying to just the shape of the land.

After lunch we learned various physical training exercises.  Erin talked about running form, and how important it is to run efficiently.  

Then we went out and worked on some long legs, going slowly and working in teams to think about route choice.  I tried doing some of the simplification that we started learning with the contour-O.

After dinner, Jeff and Judy talked with us about training, and showed us some juniors’ logs on AttackPoint.  It was cool to hear about other juniors like Emily Kemp and Jamie Stevenson.  Jeff said his job is to match us to mentors or coaches; we just have to ask him.  We talked about setting goals and talking with other people about our goals.  

Neil showed us some maps and talked about route choice.  He showed us Thierry Gueorgiou’s description of how he simplified the map in the 2004 WOC middle distance race (you can get it online here).  I liked seeing that, because it really showed how you can simplify in order to go faster; it was inspiring.

It was nice to see the other juniors, especially Meg, Anna, Elina, Evalin, and Melanie.  When I got home I started using AttackPoint; you can check out my log here.  My goal is to make the JWOC team.  Going to the junior training camp definitely made me more serious about orienteering.