This year's first night rogaining competition in Latvia took place in Vidzeme central highlands

On July 10-11, near Rauna by the Lubūzis lake (in the territory of Smiltene and Cēsis municipalities), the first night rogaining competition took place this year - "Midnight rogaining".

First, a small sidenote. Over the past two years, observing the work of Latvian political epidemiologists, there was often a feeling that either these people are completely incompetent in medicine, or their goal was to force the public to follow completely illogical and pointless bans that have nothing to do with the spread of viruses or science-based epidemiology. Only in the worst nightmares was it possible to imagine how supermarkets were banned from selling gloves, warm hats, scarves and even heating briquettes last December, saying that this would reduce the spread of the virus. The government's actions at the time meant that they believed that if people walk in the cold of winter without gloves and winter hats, it will stop the hospitals from filling up with Covid patients! The same goes for many different restrictions on physical activities. In Latvia, very popular sports are orienteering and rogaining, where the competitor has to walk or run alone (or in pairs) through forests and uninhabited areas.

The competition can be very simple. The participant registers their start time with the mobile application using a QR code attached to the tree. Then they check in at each control point with the mobile application, by scanning the code. After the finish (by scanning the finish code) the result is uploaded. Swamps, forest ditches and trails - practically no other people. But at the beginning of last summer, Latvian political epidemiologists categorically forbade this kind of competition at night! Covid is everywhere! Those who run alone in the woods at night will spread Covid so that the dying and the sick will overflow the resuscitation wards of all the hospitals. Until midnight? Go right ahead! But after 24:00 no one better take a step in the forest and swamp. Maybe Latvian political epidemiologists believed that from 00:01 Covid crawls out of forest thickets to start infecting Latvia. On the other hand, when the second wave of Covid reached Latvia at the end of last year, Latvian political epidemiologists categorically forbade this type of running through the forest to be called a competition. As soon as you name an individual running through the forest during the day as a competition, Latvia will be done with. Covid will be everywhere - hospitals will be overcrowded with those sick and dying from Covid.

Ok, fine. During this year, such sports activities were not called "competitions", but "individual training". Those were allowed. Thank God that Latvian political epidemiologists did not think of banning participants of individual training from sharing their results. However, intimidated by the possible repression by the State Police, the organizers of the first individual training placed the website where the participants of the “training” could upload their results and compare them with other people's performances on a site with an Estonian domain…

But this summer there has been slight enlightenment for the government. At a moment of enlightenment, Latvian political epidemiologists not only allowed the movement of one or two people in the forest to be called a competition, but even somehow came to the conclusion that running in the forest at night alone did not contribute as much to the spread of viruses as they thought last year.

In July, orienteering and rogaining competitions can be called competitions and are even allowed to take place at night. Therefore, I was very honored to participate in the first night rogaining competition of this season, which was organized by the association Meridiāns and Valters Kaminskis in cooperation with the association Sporta klubs R24.LV and the Latvian Orienteering Federation.

The competition took place in two formats - 4 and 8 hours. To prevent crowding, each distance group started at a different time. For those who choose the 8-hour distance, the start was given at 22:00, and the participants had to finish by six in the morning. Since the sun went down a few minutes after ten but rose only shortly before five, the period of darkness was about four hours. But there are still white nights at the moment. The sun does not slide more than 12 degrees below the horizon line at night, so even in the dark of night, there is a so-called nautical twilight. However, if you can still see something in an open field, in the thicket of the forest or when it is overcast you can't do without a flashlight or headlamp.

Many times, when writing about the rogaining competition, I have pointed out that participation in such events is both a tour of Latvia and a fantastic way to get acquainted with the diversity of Latvia's nature. "Midnight rogaining" took place in Vidzeme's central highlands - near Rauna. There are no Pieriga and Jūrmala pine forests in the central highlands of Vidzeme. The highlands are formed by clay soil hills, covered with spruce and deciduous forests. It is already the middle of July, and the undergrowth has accumulated so much that in a thick forest it is excellent if the visibility is more than ten meters. The tops of the hills are covered with forests, but the depressions between the hills are swampy. Reeds taller than a human have accumulated on the sides of ditches and water bodies. In such conditions, it is difficult to find a checkpoint in the thicket even during the day, but at night it is very extreme. Teams that chose to look for checkpoints around Slapjuma hill sometimes had to make a difficult decision. To cross the bog at night in a straight line, wading in a swamp up to the chest, or trudge through a five times longer detour - over the thickets, fallen trees and water pits.

In rogaining, each checkpoint has its own value. The winner is the one who gets the checkpoints with the highest total value in the given time. Traditionally, the checkpoints in the depths of the swamps have a much higher value than the points to be found on the edges of the meadow or surrounded by forests. Everyone can plan a route according to their abilities. In order to win, the difficult swamp points had to be found. However, the best rogainers in Latvia were not disappointed about it, because Rauna midnight rogaining is one of the opportunities to prepare for the European Rogaining Championship, which is planned for September - in Estonia, in the Otepää highlands.

One may ask, what is the joy of such a crazy competition for those who will probably never climb on the podium of even the Latvian Championship?

The greatest satisfaction comes not from the place won, but from the feeling of satisfaction that comes from the awareness that you are able to carry out your planned route, that you are able to make rational decisions and give up the unattainable, that even at night, straying from your route in the woods, you are able to understand where you are and find the right way to continue the distance and be able to reach the finish line without asking anyone for help.