four hours, one quarter down, three to go.

We are walking along the shore, watching a beautiful sunses over the water. Some of the views today have been breathtaking. All the course has been hard on my breath, actually, with more and steeper climbs than I expected.

We are about 1 hour behind schedule, mostly because of 1 control that was very hard to get to, through vines and tall grass.

10 controls, 580 points. Not too bad.

Start time.

Targo and I looked at the course and decided that even with a challenging course, going to Vashon is going to be almost impossible. We plan to cover about 70% of the course, about 70Km as the crow flies.

We may revise the plan once we get a feel for our speed.

It's going to be fun.

Today is the day of the event. The weather report looks perfect, high today is expected to be 81 degrees, the low tomorrow morning should be 59. Partly cloudy.

Time to head out. Everything is packed (I hope) except for a flashlight and some nuts to munch on, which we will grab on the way out of town.

For those of you who don't know me, here is a picture of me and my sister, in front of the two towers in downtown Bologna, Italy.

After the three hours drive from Beaverton, OR, I should be in Seattle by noon, in time to be at the event center sometime atound 1 PM.

Last week I stopped at the Powells travel bookstore in Portland and picked up a couple of books on things to do with kids, as well as two 1:25000 USGS maps of Seattle. Since I have never been there, I am trying to figure out what to expect. One thing for sure, the city is rather large, and the event will be quite challenging. I am rather concerned about the interstate 5 freeway that crosses the middle of the city as well as some other significant obstacles. It will be tricky to figure out where to cross, since the map we are going to get to use during the event is not up to date...

Today I bought a new pair of shoes, and started breaking them in. they are walking shoes, not my usual running shoes. I hope that they are comfortable and don't give me too many problems. I went fot a 100 minute wals this evening to try the new shoes, and to try the Camelback while I do it. I have had a Camelback bottle for almost two years, but it has been gathering dust for a while. The model I have is a 2 liter bottle with a small pocket for change and ID. It may not be quite big enough for what I am going to need on the course.

Not that I have decided what I am going to have with me, besides water. For sure a hat, cash, ID, and water. Maybe I'll make some trail mix to munch on. I may need to go buy a headlight.

For sure I will have my T-Mobile PocketPC phone with me, and I will try to update this blog during the race, as time and connection allows. It will be interesting. I have already tested that i can write and post messages using the phone, not as easy as using the keaboard, but it is not too bad.

The training walk went quite well, I kept a steady pace of 6 Km per hour, according to the GPS I had with me. I should be able to keep that pace for ours, just how many I don't know.

I have never been to Seattle. I went past it once, a few months ago, on the way to a conference in Vancouver, BC. I look forward to being a tourist for a full day and a full night.

To participate to this event, you need to be part of a team of at least two people. You can do the 3 hour event by yourself, but that would be a lot of driving for that much time on the course. So I sent a message to the mailing list fot eh SND to look for a suitable partner. I got one, but we sure are not identical, not at all. Targo is in his mid twenties, has also been orienteering for a while, starting in his native Estonia, and he finished a marathon less than a year ago in 3 1/2 hours. Me, I am well overweight, in my late thirties, not doing enough exercise. But he convinced me to try the 16 hour event anyway, while I was leaning towards the more reasonable 7 hour one.

But I was honest and told him that I would probably slow him down. We'll see how it goes.

Only eight days left until the start. I guess I need to get busy writing.

My name is Marcello, and I will be doing 16 hours of walking all over Seattle in the first Seattle Night and Day event.

I am a 38 year old Italian translator who tests software translated into Italian for a living. My company is Dream Team Localization. I have a wife and a wonderful 5 year old daughter.

I have been orienteering for a long time, maybe 15 years. Or I guess I should say I did, I have not been very active in the past couple of years. When I lived in Texas a few years ago, I was a member of the North Texas Orienteering Club. I considered organizing a rogaine on a very interesting area, gathered information and maps, even subscribed to a mailing list on the subject. But I never got around to it, too many other things going on in my life. That is always the case with me, there is just too much going on to do new things.

I am still on that mailing list. I never figured out how to get unsubscribed, so I just ignore the messages, half spam and half reports from rogains in Australia.

But a few weeks ago there was a strange message about the vetting of one control on one event in the USA. That was the Seattle Night and Day.

I went to the site and ot lots of information. It sounded interesting. And a very intense physical activity. But still interesting...