Sprint Info

University of Maryland Map Notes

Map: 1:4,000 2m contours. Mapper: Ted Good.

The general area to be used is a typical college campus with many buildings, sidewalks, and other paved pedestrian areas, roads, open grassy areas, and scattered trees and ornamental plantings. Topographically, the easternmost part of the campus is quite flat, with the land generally rising gently farther west. Stairways of varying lengths abound. Mapped to IOF ISSprOM 2019-2 Revision 6, with the whole area updated in 2025 through early 2026. North lines are blue (120m apart).

Traffic: Although this event is being held during Spring Break, the campus will not be deserted. Roads will still be open to vehicles, and campus buses will be running. Look both ways before crossing roads and yield to traffic. Students often use scooters and bicycles, and they can go quite fast on the roads and sidewalks. Roads use the darker brown pavement color (possible heavy traffic). Parking lots and sidewalks use the lighter tan pavement color (light traffic).

Vegetation: the large green circle symbol represents very large trees. The smaller green circle is used for smaller trees and bushes. The smaller green circle is also used for trees in narrow strips of grass lining the roads. Some large evergreens with branches low enough  to impact runnability are mapped as dark green fight.

Open with Scattered Trees is used when there are too many trees to map individually, or when there isn't room for the larger tree symbol between other symbols .

Olive Green is OUT OF BOUNDS and should not be crossed. Gardens are mapped with olive green. The garden areas can't always be determined by looking at them, especially before and very early in the growing season. Some mulch areas are gardens, and some are not. Please respect the olive green on the map. There will likely be judges on the course who will note violators.

Stairs: virtually all stairs have crossable railings that aren't mapped. Don't expect to be able to run across stairs, just up/down them. To improve legibility, small stairways may be extended slightly on the map so there are at least two steps.

Boulders: Boulders are typically less than 1 meter in size but are very distinct.

Complexity in the built environment: it can be difficult to determine at a glance which "uncrossable lines" are walls and which are cliffs/drop-offs. They are forbidden to cross regardless. Where there is a significant change in level and room exists on the map, cliff tags are used to show up vs. down, but in many cases, the tags obscured features and couldn't be used.

The map includes several multi-level areas and runnable areas under building canopies. Some are quite small, like walkways over an area, and may be hard to see on the map. Some are large and include buildings/parking garages. Only two levels are mapped, generally the top-most and bottom-most. Unusable entrances are either not on the map or have a purple line to indicate that entry is forbidden. Look for the line of triangles to show the locations of the lower-level entrances/exits.

Specific manufactured objects.

• Henson/Kermit (Muppet) statue is a black circle.

• Testudo statues used black X. Testudo, (UMD mascot), is a giant turtle.

•  Helicopter is mapped as a helicopter-shaped building.

•  Large electrical and HVAC boxes are mapped as small buildings (usually minimum sized, but some are large enough to be mapped actual size and shape)     

The following are not mapped:

• Dumpsters

• Street lights

• Fire hydrants

• Telephone lines/poles.

• Benches

• Picnic tables.

The campus as a whole is never free of active construction sites. These vary in size from very small (e.g., a cordon around a small excavation) to large construction sites where entire new buildings are built. Every effort is being made to keep the map up to date, but projects can pop up without notice and may not be mapped. Mapped construction areas use the purple hash. Depending on the nature and progress of the construction activity, the area of the map under the hash may not accurately represent the actual state of affairs during the event.

The Metro Purple Line runs through the middle of the campus, along the south edge of the event map. The railroad tracks are flush with the road (not raised or below ground), and the road is shared with vehicles. The Metro tracks aren't currently in use, and there is no reason anyone should cross them while on course.

Sprint Course Notes: (Course Setter: Jon Torrance)

(coming soon)