Training Log Archive: dlevine

Event: Salomon Raid the Hammer 25K Adventure Run
 

Salomon Raid The Hammer

Ran with Dave Cady and Patty Lyons as the Buffalo Wing Nuts.

Drew an odd e-punch number which was unlucky as it made us start on the south loop. A short run to the tunnel followed by a several minute walk through as there were 100+ people trying to get into a single file line. Stayed low to D & C, then turned up the hill towards B and could see it after about three steps from C. Back through the tunnel to the start. Down the trail and up the spur to D, contour to C, and then over to B. Down from B through the field and back to the start. Then up the trail again and right in to #1.

Contoured high to #2. Felt slow, but we seemed to pass other teams.

Slowly on the run as numerous other teams passed us. In to #3 and then through Ancaster to #4 and out of town. Had a bit of trouble at the seam of maps 2 and 3, (just as Bash had predicted!) and overshot the turn by about 100 yards.

Crossed the stream early and went in to 5B with no problems. Then to the rail trail and into the aid station just under 2 hours. That was the good news. The bad news is that we spent most of the rest of the course walking...

Down the rail trail to the (unmapped) connector just S of 7B. As we were headed to it, another team was expressing concern that it was 7A, not 7B. We were momentarily confused; why could this possibly matter, punch it either way and then get out to the road before attacking #8?

Skirted the residential areas on the trails before taking the streams around and attacking #8 from below.

Took the Bruce Trail to #9. Saw a team moving along the road to #9 as we crossed and saw them again at #9; always odd when two decent paths cross at 90 degrees. They beat us in, but they were running and we were walking, so it's probably a 50-50 call.

Slightly uphill to the right of the W stream and down the trail to #10.

I took 10A in the matrix while Dave took 10B and 10C and Patty took 10D. I climbed the hill to the property boundary and fence and then went along to the trail and the flag. Further down the trail to the nice spur out to the road and in to #11. Patty was already there - waiting less than a minute - and Dave showed up about two minutes later. He had doubled back to take the trail; otherwise the three of us would have been almost simultaneous.

Took the road all the way to due N of #12 and then the trail to just before the hill NE of the control. Spiked it.

Back to the trail S to #13. Cute idea, placing the ink for "RUNNING FREE VERTIGHO" right over the trail junction in the clearing, but we went right in to the zone for #13. Spent some time debating between the two rightmost flags, but after about 45 seconds agreed that it was the one on the right.

Up to #14 where we were told that we had a "lucky guess". Luck, my foot, but I'd be curious how many teams got it wrong, and how many never tried given that the penalty loop was a flat run under 0.5 km; a good running team might have considered going from #12 to the road and straight to #14 and then running the baseball fields. We're not a good running team, but I think that that would have been a win for such a team.

By now, there was a herd path on the Line-O. Another team behind us clearly used us to rule out hill #2 as a flag location (or maybe they were just betting, given that there were only two flags and that would have shortened the Line-O too much). Either way, after way too much climbing, we headed out to #15.

Up the hill to the right out of 15 (ugh!) and then to the trail to the field and back to #16.

Took the road N all the way to the trail, then over the spur and around to 17. Got confused thinking we might have overshot as the terrain changed, but then we turned and saw that we were in the correct reentrant, just 50 m below the flag.

Sloppy out of #17, going N to the swamp with some yellow on it, corrected over to the trail, hitting that just at the clearing just S of the swamp. Compass bearing over the hill and we could see the flag from the SE side of the stream. This control would have been a bit tougher had it been one contour higher. Somehow, I doubt that the extra climb would have concerned the course setters.

Past the two ponds and contoured in to #19. Surprisingly easy.

#20 was the control that scared us the most from the moment we saw the map. Perhaps fear helped; perhaps we were so slow that it didn't matter, but this one was a piece of cake. SSE to the trail; trail E until it bended N, into the big reentrant and then clockwise around the hill mass just N of the control. Spiked it without ever climbing one contour more than necessary. Heard after wards that other teams went up the reentrant that ends at the "2" in the "20" on the map. This is perhaps slightly shorter, but seems riskier and involves slightly more climb. All in all, I could believe that it's equivalent, but I can't believe it's a better route.

Out the reentrant just N of the line, down the hill (considered using the map cases as a sled) and through the flat stuff. I kept veering off while in the lead, but Dave kept correcting me. On the last steep climb to the road, I developed bad cramps in my hamstrings, but they abated when I got the the flatter and smoother road. We rested for a moment just out of sight of the finish and then jogged in to #21, our first running in a few hours.

And then, for good measure and general rudeness, we ran in to the finish, passing a female team that had bagged the last section. We felt vaguely guilty about this, but wanted to run to the finish anyway, so...



Overall, a slow, but good race with two new teammates. I wish that we had been faster, but it was not our course or our day. Intra-team dynamics were fine, but each of the three of us was afraid to ask the others to push the pace. We could probably have knocked off twenty minutes, but not the forty minutes needed to place us in the 2nd to 5th pack (separated by 83 seconds!) in our division.

Rogaines and adventure races usually have the rule that the team must be together at all times. (There are exceptions, such as the Matrix sections at RTH and GRR races, but that's not the point here.)

"Together" is usually formally, but loosely defined. It is also essentially never enforced, although there was the protest a few years ago at a rogaine championship that involved a teammate who was "missing", but "attending to a call of nature". I don't know the actual details there, but the case does represent one of the few cases I know where the rule was actually enforced.

My experience at Raid races is that the rule is loosely obeyed by most teams. When confronted with a control on a hill to the side of the main direction of travel, most teams send one person up the hill to punch. If the control is within 20m of the hill, then there is no issue. Between 20 and 50, an issue of semantics could be argued. Over 50 and the rule is clearly broken, but it seems like that is an unofficial accepted norm. A classic example of this was #2 at last spring's GRR. When we got to the area, there were three pairs of people watching their third teammates go up the hill to the flag. There was one complete team up there, though I later learned that they had taken a different approach. (Full disclosure: we sent our third guy up the hill, but then took a few steps up ourselves, rationalizing that a) we were close enough, and b) we were certainly closer than the teams ahead of us. A team came up behind us and mimicked our behavior.)

I can live with this kind of interpretation of the rule. The flag is in sight; it is clearly the overall social norm. I find myself frustrated by a behavior that I have seen at three of my last four raids (not counting the summer NavStock Raid). In this case, one stronger runner is clearly abandoning his team - usually on a road - and then rejoining them later. The most flagrant example occurred in today's raid.

Leaving #8 and heading to #9, we saw behavior that I can only describe as complete disregard for the rules. One guy punched 8 just ahead of us and headed out towards the road as did we. After 200 m (almost to the road), he starts calling out to his teammates. They are responding from far away saying they are on the road. When we do make it to the road, they are no where in sight, still too far north to be seen. I make the minimum separation at 350 m and ten minutes (based upon how long we saw the guy and adding time for him to get to the flag and later rendezvous with his team.) I suspect that these are underestimates.

Now, I tell myself that I run these races for the experience. Yes, I am competitive and would like to win my division (at least if it's Masters), I want to beat a few select folks (you know who you are), and I want to do well. But mostly, I do it for fun and should not let other people's behavior affect me. When my wife and I hike the Appalachian Trail, we often hear the credo, "Hike your own hike", and we do not in the least judge other hikers who may take shortcuts or skip sections and still claim to have done the whole thing. Yet, somehow, this feels different. Perhaps because this is formally a race? I don't really know and I don't know what could or should be done if this problem is more than in my head. Either way, I feel better for having vented...

C • Rule violations 17

Hill intervals @ 6; just enough to get the blood moving prior to RTH.

Cool down from the Arc Trainer as someone wanted the machine...

Two laps of the Allegany River Trail - sort of. With two miles to go, Theresa got a flat, so we cut through the woods to Francis Hall and then I biked back to the car and drove to pick her up.