Possum Trot XII Meet Report
by Jim Mullin (MNOC)

This year MNOC had a larger than usual contingent of runners at the annual Possum Trot Orienteering weekend December 6-7. Nine of us, not wanting to see the end of orienteering season, loaded into Mike Carl-son’s and Jerritt Johnson’s vans and headed to Kansas City.
The two-day event began Saturday with something between a sprint and a standard green course. It was all open running on the Johnson County Community College campus. Justin Bakken came in first overall with a time just under 20 minutes followed shortly by Peter Curtis coming in second. Julia Bohnen won her age class and Ian Harding, Mike Carlson and Molly Moilanen all placed within the top three of their classes. Had Tom Puzak not mistaken one control for another he would have been up there as well.
Strangely, for a day including orien-teering it was about as lazy a day as I have had in months. Thirty min-utes of running and the rest of the day off. We took advantage of the time off eating and drinking beer at the Applebee’s next to our motel. The more ambitious Peter worked on the MNOC website, and Tom simultaneously operated two lap-tops and an iPhone while working on a map and course he is designing. That evening we headed to the Possum Trot Orienteering Club annual holiday pizza party. PTOC president, Dick Neuburger offered to rename the event the Possum Trot/MNOC Christmas Party taking note of the large Minnesota pres-ence. The swapping of white ele-phant gifts got intense when Mike and Julia stole and re-stole the prize topographic, camo-colored under-wear. Can’t say who ended up wearing the pants. Then back to the motel for more beer, and games organized by Molly.
The big day was Sunday at Bluffwoods Conservation Area and hour and a half north of Kansas City. It is a very rugged area, simi-lar to Afton State Park except the valleys are deeper and there are very few roads or trails. Mike Shifman designed an excellent 12.8K course. There were 23 controls with 2 non-consecutive skips allowed. The real challenge was the course’s nearly 2,000 feet of climb.
The 9:00 AM frosty mass start began with the pack making mad dash up a very steep and high hill. Well, it started out a dash. A third of the way to the top I couldn’t see anyone running. It seemed that of our group, only Molly looked at her map long enough to realize that taking the road around to the other side of the hill was the way to go.
Some folks including Mike and me, took an early skip at #4. It wasn’t a bad choice but I paid for it later. It was fun to be able to say hello again to the leaders as they flew past. It was also fortunate for Justin that Mike was again up near the leaders. After punching #5 Justin came flying down a steep hill straight into a barb wire fence. It upended him and left him hanging. With his legs tangled in the barbs, and his arms not being able to
push his body up the slope, he was stuck. Mike came to his aid and lifted him off of the fence. Banged up and bloody Justin was still on a mission. As Mike set him back on the ground he shot off like a slot car, running another hour and a half to become the day ’s second place finisher. Tom also had a run-in with the woods after deciding to jump over some dead fall in his way. Unfortunately his foot caught on take off and the landing went very badly.
Due to the mass start and since it is not illegal or even bad style to follow other competitors, often packs and pairings form. These groups often are made up of similarly skilled and conditioned competitors. The not so secret rivalry between Ian and Jerritt showed itself again at the Possum Trot. They were often seen running to-gether, this time while being shadowed by a 14 year old. We later saw Jerritt running alone and mumbling after it seems he mistakenly thought he had the better route to a control. After the meet, Jerritt called Ian’s antics at the finish line out of line, claiming that Ian ran jumping up and down yelling ―You got beat by an old guy.‖ It seemed hard to believe that our president would have behaved in such a manner until Ian added ―Yeah, and the 14 year old beat you too.‖
Mike and I crossed paths and ran near each other for a number of controls as well. Often we split up only to find each other at the next control. I made the blunder of taking my own route to #20 when I really was not solidly on the map. What was I thinking? After wander-ing for nearly twenty minutes I gave up and took it as one of my skips. This was especially depressing because not only had I ruined a good run but now I had to run an extra 1.5K dogleg that I planned on skipping. Some day I have to learn how to do this sport. Meanwhile, Mike also had difficulty but he chose a completely novel, some might say unheard of, way to solve his predicament. He lay down, ate a Snickers, and took a nap. It worked. Not only was he refreshed but upon rising he went directly to the control only 16 feet away. OK, so that is weird but not the weirdest. It seems that Julia took this opportu-nity to overtake Michael (me too but I was hopeless by this time). Though she claims not to have seen him, this seems unlikely since she nearly had to step over him on the way to the control. There was not so much as a ―Hi, Mike.‖ or a ―Are you OK?‖ to the man lying in the weeds, just punch and run.
A warm fire, food and drink met us at the finish. We had only one more task. To find Justin. He had been taken to a hospital to get his leg looked at but after he found out how much it would cost he took off running to what he hoped would be a cheaper clinic a few miles away. Fortunately Jerritt and company intercepted him just as his bandage was failing. He accepted a ride back to the hospital. This all led to an in-depth discussion in the old people van about the ills of US healthcare system. It got us most of the way through Iowa.
Thank you, to all of you who organized the trip. It was a great weekend of orienteering and my legs have nearly recovered.
Jim Mullin