A lengthy RED you say?? Turns out that the ORANGE, YELLOW, and WHITE were all challenging in their own right. You'll be glad to know that all of the email critiques I received were nothing but positive! I guess most Orienteers, Beginner or Advanced would rather be challenged than bored. After all, anyone can run a one, two, or five mile road race... The reward is in getting through a tough Land Nav course, fast!!

At 6.2 km, 23 controls, the RED required quite a bit of map reading and little (except for the mile and a half back loop) endurance running. With the average leg being just over 200m this course was built for the short speed reader. As much as I enjoy long gaping terrain, sometimes it's nice to toss in brief technical intervals to keep me focused. The leaders completed the course at rate of just over 10 min/km. Well Done!!

Since the ORANGE course was built directly into the RED, those runners had to crank it up a notch as well. After completing the 17 point, almost 5k, course these runners found themselves mentally and physically drained. Most folks agreed that the wrecked cars were the highlight of the hunt. Although not hard to find, the scrap steel nuggets offered a rare manmade feature and a welcomed "hide-a-bag" opportunity. Hopefully, those who completed this course will be confident to run RED in the future.

Then there was YELLOW, a tough 3.3 km trail run which required more off-road brush beating than the average novice has experienced. If the distance didn't get you, the 13 controls would have. With x-ray vision you'd've had to squint to see some of the bags from the well groomed Peebles trails. Most of the first half of this course stayed right next to the river banks where sauntering tourists could take in the awesome sites.

WHITE runners ran a YELLOW course...did you know that??? I'll expect that you'll all be running more challenging courses in the future.

I'd be remiss if I didn't offer my sincere thanks to Rob and Rita Reed for their tremendously helpful mentoring and day-of-the-race work Helping hands from Phil Hawkes-Teeter, Glen and Janet Tryson, and a delightful person named Elinora made the day a little easier at the end. Finally, thanks to my wife Kathy Staats for joining me in the sport and giving her time make this event a success.

-Grant Staats