Mihai Munteanu: Trail Runner Notes: Rogaining!

Ro what? Rogaining?
What the heck is this??
I have never heard this word before!

This was my reaction when Nic, an old friend of mine told me that there is a new orienteering race format. Well, it is new in Romania, but quite old and popular in other countries.

So how does it work? Simple! Each team of 2 to 5 runners gets a detailed map (usually 1:25000) with control points, a time limit and after an hour and a half of studying the map and planning the route, off you go! Each control point is worth points. The more remote and more difficult to reach, the more valuable it is! The competitors decide for the best strategy to collect as many points as possible.

Saturday I competed in the first official Rogaining competition organised in Romania! Carpath Rogaining Trophy. It wasn't planned, but just three weeks before the competition my friend Nic broke his leg... He was already registered in the 8 hours race, and eager to participate, after winning a smaller scale demo competition earlier during the summer. So why not! Let's do it!

We had a bit of an unfair advantage as the competition area covered most of my usual running trails between Brasov and Postavarul Peak. However, most valuable checkpoints (9 points) were located in the thick and wild forests on the eastern side of Postavarul massif where I have never been before! So at least for half of the route it felt like on foreign lands...

There were only about 20 teams at the start, about 12 in our category: 8 hours men open. I hope that next edition there will be more teams. Even if this was the first edition, it was very well organised at a high standard! We had electronic sticks (SI-card) for quickly registering at the check points and they worked flawlessly. The map was of good quality, printed on a water resistant paper. There were 51 check points covering an area of about 90 square kilometers. The lowest ones were at about 650m altitude, the highest at 1500m. There were three points with water and food (bananas and energy bars). At the finish we had a pizza party... after 8 hours of running, the pizza and a big hot tea tasted soo goood!

Here is the map of the competition. Click on it for more details.

My team mate, Ion is a forest engineer. He has better skills than me at reading maps. On the other hand I knew the terrain better and I was moving a bit faster than him. Overall we complemented well each other and the teamwork went very well!

The weather was perfect for such a competition. Cool (10-15C), overcast and without wind. We had a few rain drops, but we were lucky. The proper rain started just 30 minutes after finish.

The start/finish area was in the ski resort of Poiana Brasov at about 1050m altitude.
Once we received the maps we immediately noticed that the east side of the map had the most valuable checkpoints. True that the terrain was more difficult and the distance between check-points greater, but we instantly knew we have to start with the difficult part of the route and collect the fat points.
The initial planned route worked quite well. We planned a main route and decided later along the route which checkpoints we take and which we skip. We skipped just one 9-points post.
The plan was to take the easy ones at the end of the race on the return path. We did not have too much time left, but we arrived at finish 8 minutes before the end of the race... each minute of delay is taking away 1 point... not worth risking!

Towards the end of the race we missed one obvious 5-point checkpoint (number 59) as we misjudged the distance from the previous one - The path was downhill and we were moving faster that we thought.

At the end we surprised ourselves and the other finishers with a total of 179 points collected! Only one other team managed to get that many. A team from Estonia, the only foreign team. However, we finished about 50 seconds faster so according to the rules we took the first place! The third place was very close with 176 points! A team of experienced orienteering enthusiasts, but they did not venture far enough as we did. I am sure that they reached quite a few more checkpoints than us, but of smaller value.

As for the team from Estonia... well we were very impressed! On "neutral" terrain I am sure that they would have beaten us by a large margin. I am sure that for a foreigner, the area of this competition was not at all easy! Mostly in thick forest on steep mountain slopes with lots of deep valleys. I wished I had talked to them after the competition, but right after the medals ceremony the DJ pumped-up the volume of the music far too much... it was time for me to leave...

This was my very first orienteering type race. I have to say that rogaining is quite addictive! I will probably participate again next year at the second edition. Will I win again? I do not really care. I just hope that the bar will be raised, so there will be more and better teams! I am also now looking for a good mountain runner to form a faster team next year... In the meanwhile I should get more precise and faster with my reading skills!

I congratulate the organizers and the volunteers for a very well organised event at a very high standard! And thanks to all volunteers who endured the cold autumn weather.

Here is our route of the competition. A whole mountain marathon and a quite demanding one!
Notice the shape of the route... a running rabbit.. or fox...

Here are a few photos taken along the route. Well there was not much time for photos...