Events
meshO crosses the Pacific: our first event in the USA
Marina and I took meshO Manager and meshO radios to the Blue Mountain 2-Day National Ranking Event in Peekskill, New York. It was the first time meshO has run results at a race in the United States, and what a weekend it was.
Fedor Iskhakov
meshO · · 5 min read
Marina and I spent October 24 and 25 at Blue Mountain Reservation, about an hour up the Hudson River from New York City, for the Blue Mountain 2-Day National Ranking Event. Hosted by Hudson Valley Orienteering and Western Connecticut Orienteering Club, it was the first race in America to use meshO. I was really happy to have the opportunity to demonstrate meshO technology at the event.
We had meshO Manager independently handling the results and a meshO radio at the start. Everything ran smoothly: every card was read, results appeared on the arena screen within seconds of each download, and the radios worked perfectly. We also managed to fit in our own courses between downloads.
The weekend in numbers
- 2 races: a Middle on Saturday and a Long on Sunday
- 214 starts across the two days
- About 20 clubs, from New England to Virginia and beyond
The terrain
Blue Mountain is classic Hudson Highlands terrain: steep, rocky hillsides with boulders, crags and cliff faces under open hardwood forest, and ponds and marshes in the valleys. The maps are packed with rock detail. Look at any of the map photos below and you’ll see brown contours and black rock symbols almost everywhere.
And we arrived at the perfect moment. The forest was at peak autumn color, gold and orange and red, with a bright blue sky on Saturday. The fallen leaves made it beautiful, and also hid every small rock underfoot, so nobody was running as fast as the course lengths might suggest. Sunday’s longest course was 11.8 km with 540 m of climb, and it earned every meter.
What meshO did
On both days meshO Manager ran the timing and results in parallel with the organizers’ own timing setup. Runners downloaded their cards at the finish, and their results went straight onto a monitor in the arena, sorted by course and updated live. You finished, downloaded, and could immediately check the eye-pleasing screen to see where you’d placed.
We brought meshO Control radios with us too. On Sunday a meshO Control sat on the start and sent every start punch to Manager the moment it happened, so at any point we knew exactly who was out in the forest and for how long. We also took units out for a quick range test in this challenging, rugged terrain.
So many questions
What surprised us most was how curious everyone was about meshO tech. The results screen was never alone. Runners came straight from the finish to crowd around it, phones out to photograph their splits, arguing over route choices on the maps they were still holding. And a steady stream of questions: where the radios came from, how the punches get from the forest to the screen, how far they reach in terrain like this, and whether their own club could use meshO.
Day 1: the Middle
Saturday’s Middle had 112 starts on courses from White to Blue, and 97 clean finishes. The top course, Blue for M-21+, was 5.0 km with 270 m of climb and 22 controls. Yury Tambasov (DVOA) won it in 39:21, and he led at every single control. That makes it sound easy. It wasn’t.
Danny Riley (NEOC) was 1:38 down by control 10, then took back almost a minute over the last twelve controls to finish just 39 seconds behind. Greg Ahlswede (DVOA) was third, 4:28 back. The long legs to controls 5, 7 and 9 each took the middle of the field more than four minutes, and that is where most of the gaps opened.
Time behind the leader at each control, M-21+ Middle
Top five finishers. The line at the top is the leader; the further down a line goes, the further that runner was behind at that control.
Day 2: the Long
Sunday was the big one. The first runner left the start at 9:00 and the last at 11:51. The meshO Control on the start unit sent every start punch to Manager live, every one of them arriving clean. That let Manager show, minute by minute, who was out in the forest. At 11:00 there were 59 runners out on the hills at once.
Yury Tambasov made it two from two, winning the 11.8 km M-21+ course in 84:07, 6:12 ahead of Danny Riley, with Greg Ahlswede third again. In F-21+ Tatiana Rvacheva won the 7.9 km course in 95:43.
Runners in the forest, minute by minute, Sunday's Long
From each runner's start punch to their finish, for the runners whose finish was downloaded. The ticks along the bottom are the start punches, each one sent live by the radio on the start.
Full results and splits for both days are on meshO Events:
Thank you
A huge thank you to Hudson Valley Orienteering and Western Connecticut Orienteering Club for having us, and for giving us the opportunity to show off meshO technology at their National Ranking Event. Thank you to the course setters and every volunteer, and to every runner who stopped by the desk to ask a question. You made us feel very welcome.
This was meshO’s first race in the United States. It won’t be the last. If your club would like to try meshO, get in touch. We’d love to hear from you.
