Training Log Archive: pwentz3l

Wild Fall Sprint AR

First Wild Sprint AR for me. I told Rick I wanted to race, so he hooked me up with the gentleman who won the mini race at the Among the Wild fundraiser.

The race start was in Saint Croix Bluffs Park. First item... find a roll of TP on one of the picnic tables and wrap your race partner using the entire roll. Rolls were wet... so not an easy task. Strip off the TP then embark on a 9 control aerial photo map. The controls weren't "easy" by any means. 1, 2 and 3 were easy, and we flip flopped positions with a couple teams. #4 was in a reentrant with a large drop that has a waterfall when we aren't in a drought. We had a specified route to leave 4, which brought us to the 5th control. The instructions stated we had to pull a piece of flagging off of the route and bring it to the TA... we missed that part. We left the bouldering route (very cool) and hopped on a trail, which was the wrong trail, which led us towards 8... reoriented, but still couldn't find the correct reentrant for 6. Ended up at #7, which made for an easy route to 6 and then back to punch 7. 8 and 9 were easy enough and back to the TA in 3/4 position.

First race on the new bike!!!

A slow TA... put us definitely in 4th... Leading was Follow Me, 2 gnome Hunters, and Toad Hall. We passed 2GH and TH by the park entrance and quickly put a gap on them. We had a couple of road controls, then entered some private property where we had to pay a toll to pass the Troll's bridge and answer a question, as we punched, to gain passage. A couple more quick points and then entered a nature center with paths through a grassland. Seemed pretty simple, but we totally messed this up. We went to the closest point and punched, then went to the next, where I told my teammate it was control #14, to which he replied... I already punched that one. So, we went back to the first one and punched it in the correct location.... and continued. Eventually, we ended up at Carpenter Nature Center.

A fun Rogaine section. We were the first to arrive, having passed everyone on the bike. Follow Me had a nav error and then a mechanical. We had a designated route in to and out of one control, which we decided to attack first. We used a piece of webbing to descend a steep hill, then orienteered up a small but cool canyon with big boulders and overhangs. The control was in a mini cave with a zombie. we had to pass through the cave and another zombie had written instructions to find all 4 trick or treat buckets to obtain enough candy to gain passage back out. We got a little confused.... we couldn't figure out from the directions that the buckets were actually closer to the webbing... so we lost some time, but we laughed through it as the zombies were attempting, very poorly, to be scary. They couldn't stop laughing at themselves. The rest of the controls were straight forward, but fun to find in this neat little park. Steep leave and rock covered hills made for some slow going.

C • Carpenter nature center 7

A quick ride back to the start with one control on the way.

We came in 17 minutes in front of 2GH and another 4-5 minutes in front of Toad Hall. However... in reviewing the course... we realized we really messed up the mountain bike section and did the controls as a Rogaine instead of in order. With our retrack, we probably short cut the course .5-1k... which would not have affected the standings, but we discussed it with race management and forfeited the W. I take the blame for not asking more questions of my partner, who had the clue sheet. He was new, I was not... and should have known better. He had a great time and will definitely be back.

It was great to get out, promote the sport, have some fun, and interact with friends. New bike did awesome. :-) I however, am not in the shape I need to be in. Work work work.

Wild Fall Sprint 2012 at EveryTrail
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