Aubree has friends who have been trying to get her to participate in orienteering for years. She always scoffed at their effort, "That sounds terrible! I hate running!"
As cross country season came to an end, she began to reconsider her "I will never" stance. Suddenly, running a few miles wasn't a big deal. Tallie mentioned that being involved with orienteering might look good on a college application. Most importantly, she was friends with a lot of the kids on the orienteering team.
I got her to agree to go to the Orienteering Team opening social at the end of October, promising, "This is not a commitment to join - just try it out!"
In what we have come to learn is true Tahoma Orienteering Club style, the opening social was a Street-O, which meant we broke into teams and then had one hour to get to as many checkpoints as we could. The checkpoints were at various distances spread out in nearby neighborhoods and parks. When the hour timer began, Aubree took off in a group of girls and Bryce took off with two other pre-teen boys (I felt a little nervous about that one). Tallie insisted I join her team. She's a competitive one! No thanks to me, our team ended up with the highest score at the end.
After the race we had a team barbecue. With food and friends involved, Aubree's final defenses came down and she agreed to participate on the team.
Bryce took way less persuasion. He really enjoys orienteering and his best buddy Jordan was also participating, so he was all in from the beginning. Even though I knew very, very little about the sport of orienteering, I was excited to have Aubree and Bryce because it hits both of their strengths and weaknesses. Aubree is enthusiastic, quick-thinking, competitive, and confident. Those will serve her very well out in the woods. She also rarely pays attention to her surroundings, does not have naturally strong visual-spatial skills, and is terrible at map reading. Those were things she'd need to develop to be successful. Bryce, on the other hand, is super aware of his surroundings, has excellent natural visual-spatial skills, and is very detail oriented. He is not super confident, can get anxious in unfamiliar situations, and doesn't handle failure/set-backs easily. When he's running alone in the woods, we knew he'd have to overcome and learn to handle some of those weaknesses. Plus, orienteering is a sport that involves a lot of failures and set-backs. It's part of the beauty of the sport.
Their first race was on a beautiful, sunny, warm day in early November at a gorgeous park in Seattle.
Both kids got just the basic levels of instruction before they were off to read maps and run their courses alone.
I learned it's stressful as a parent just waiting and hoping your kids isn't totally lost and/or falling apart somewhere. Eventually, both Aubree and Bryce successfully made it back with smiles on their faces. Their finishing times were not impressive, but they'd enjoyed the experience.
Races were held about every two weeks at parks and outdoor locations around the greater Seattle area. The closest race was 15 minutes away; the furthest race was 2 hours out!
Sure enough, the weather did get worse as the season progressed, but as the weather worsened, Aubree and Bryce improved. They started to figure out the basic ideas of map reading and navigation.
Thane had a chance to come to a couple of the early races and run a public course with our little friend, Venna. He immediately decided that he LOVES orienteering. It's a good fit for him; he's an orienteering-friendly combination of his siblings strengths and weaknesses. Unfortunately, once his basketball season started his games conflicted with orienteering races. However, he's really looking forward to when he's in middle school and can officially join the orienteering team.
It also helped that the kids were able to attend some practices where they learned important compass, navigation, and problem solving skills. Not to mention they got in a lot of running.
Teens these days! Always on their....compasses?
Most of the time I took Bryce and Aubree (and sometimes Thane) to their races while Mark manned the home front with the younger three. One weekend, Mark was out of town, so I had to take the whole crew. Of course, that race day was cold and rainy, and the little people were soon miserable. We decided we definitely appreciate the divide and conquer approach!
In addition to our regular league races and orienteering practices, the team also hosted a few fun activities, like the Gobble Gobble O the day after Thanksgiving. We were blessed with beautiful weather for the fun family activity.
Unlike regular orienteering races, on informal O-events, participants can compete in groups. Aubree invited her friend Vale to race with her.
I got to race with Stephanie and Kenzie while her husband followed Thane and Coleman. They're so fun!
As the season progressed, the races got progressively harder. At the Green River race, though, Aubree got 2nd place for JV girls. That was a breakthrough moment for her.
The weather also continued to get worse. We had SUCH a rainy winter. Sometimes the courses were nothing but mud and puddles.
The nature of orienteering is that you should expect major ups and downs. The race after Aubree's second place finish, she had her worst race of the season. She got lost looking for one check point. It's just part of the process.
Our last race of the regular season was two hours away. We didn't mind the drive much because we carpooled with friends. Side note - We made lots of great new friends through orienteering.
There's something bonding about getting lost in the woods.
It was one of the wetter races, but at least we managed to avoid getting directly rained on.
Aubree had a better race, but not as good as she wanted.
She was hoping to finish the season as one of the top 5 JV girls, but ended up #7. That's still an impressive finish for her first year!
Bryce also showed steady improvement over the season. Most importantly, he showed a lot of courage and calmness in the midst of hard situations.
Stay tuned for Orienteering Part 2 - Post Season.
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