NEOC Troll cup

Last week was the New England Orienteering Club's resurrection of the Troll Cup, a meet with a name steeped in some sort of mostly-forgotten history unless you're among the right crowd.  We did a two-day chasing start race, meaning that the start times on the second day were dependent upon the results of the first day, and the first person across the line on Sunday was the overall winner.  I didn't race; sometimes you have to give back a little to your sports, so I was one of the course vetters, meaning I'd been out in the woods all summer and fall making sure that the courses were reasonable and fun.  Sometimes, in thick and gnarled terrain like this, the fun can be a reach, but the forest was thinner in November than in August, so people seemed to be enjoying themselves for the most part.  Ed was in charge of his usual awesome Ed-tech, bringing the race out of the forest and into the arena, and infusing as much coolness as the sport is willing to allow.  We were lucky with the weather - it was chilly, but dry and sunny, which was great for the runners.  The organizers, well, we bundled up in a lot of layers.

I was happy to see the event go off well, and we had a new meet director apprenticing with the experienced meet director, so I'm hoping that she gained all the confidence and experience necessary to host one of these on her own in the future - the idea was to make the meet something sustainable and relatively easy to host, and I think we succeeded in that.  Yay for the troll cup!

CSU teammates Gail and Izzy conquering the finish chute of doom, below:

I found Becky, prancing down the trail. I may have told her to prance, to which she responded, do I have to? 

The high-stakes competitions over, it's time for some fun low-key events as we kick off winter.  This weekend there's a rollerski race up Kearsarge mountain, provided we don't get snowed out, and next weekend is the Blue Hills Traverse!  I never have fun at this race, but I keep coming back... stupid me.  Maybe this year it'll go better.

And when your morning bike commute looks like this, you know winter is nearly here!