(from an article on Fox Sports about protesting at The Masters)

The sheriff's office has approved protest permits for eight groups.

[Martha Burk, who heads the National Council of Women's Organizations] and [Jesse] Jackson plan to demonstrate against the all-male membership. Two groups have received permits to protest against Burk. Another group plans to protest against Jackson. A one-man faction of the Ku Klux Klan, who lists Tiger Woods as his favorite golfer, will support Augusta National's rights to private membership.

Another man wants to demonstrate in support of President Bush's war policy.

Then there's Deke Wiggins and his "People Against Ridiculous Protests." Their permit has been approved, too.

I find this absurdly surreal for some reason. If I had the kind of time and money to be a protester for or against these things or for or against the protesters of these things, and so on, I'd use it to become a better orienteer instead. Do these people not have a life, or do I not have a conscience?

If I were to stick to olog writing exclusively, perhaps I'd write things for intermediate orienteers, like this I wrote on the DVOA board. The problem was that I found most people who read my olog were better orienteers than me. It would feel weird. I also would have no idea if what works for me is good advice for others. I find my technique in some ways different than others I talk to.

Perhaps I would write about being on the USOF Board. Perhaps not [big edit] except to say I am strongly reconsidering (and certainly regretting) my decision to run for a second term.

Perhaps I should just stick to routes and races. I had my best two day A meet in South Carolina, I think. Missed silver on M21 by 1 second, but was under 8.5min/k both days on very physical maps which I consider "fiction". Its interesting, the last time I was there, I said the maps were fiction -- they are fine if you ignore the contours and vegetation. Now I say they are fiction -- they're fine if you realise that the contours are over-generalized and the vegetation is under mapped. I take this finer degree of recognition as a sign of getting better, and the fact that I was able to adjust to these problems as an encouraging sign. Some people, especially on red, had disastrous times.

Day 1 I had nearly a clean run. Some early route choice/contact wabbles and a small, late, boom, and finished about 4 minutes behind the winner, and 1:58 ahead of third. It was raining and that slowed me down. I think that helped, as the heavy rain on my legs prevented me from outrunning my navigation. Despite the fact that I'm slow, I think navigation, not physical training, is limiting me at this point.

That set up day 2, 1:58 ahead of the runner (Ted Good) starting 2:00 behind me. My fear was him catching me early, staying with me, and beating me in the chute. Exactly what happened. Unreal. A boom on 2, and problems en route to 3 allows the two minutes to be made up. I bail him out of his boom on 3, and drive the rest of the way. 10 is a long leg where I try gain on route choice -- my route choice I think was superior to his, but he changed to mine and caught me. I think running together helped both of us push and run with confidence, being alone either compromised my push, confidence, or both. He beats me to 10 by a few seconds as I get tangled in some green, but I'm back in the lead at 12. I try to pick up speed on the trail run into the second to the last control, but cut in early and high -- the 5 second boom allows him to angle to the control as he sees me head down. This is where I lost the race. I get to the GO control first, but he makes up all but one second on me in the chute (I'm a dog slow sprinter), and that was enough to beat me in the two day by one second.

Its interesting to analyze this and discover what a bad race tactician I am. I did ok navigating, and making sure I didn't lose him -- the confidence and push factor were too valuable for either of us to risk, even tho neither "followed", really. But on the second to the last control, on the trail run, I should have sprinted all out. The navigation was easy. The chance was there to break his morale, and he said it would have. But I didn't think of it, and didn't really know how much I could sprint. Previously, in races, I just run down the chute at race pace. I didn't know I had a sprint gear above race pace until this run in. But I should have used this gear on that trail run, not saved it for the chute.

Anyway, day 1 routes and day 2 routes.