high rock red. legs felt leaden - not the best tools for the hack and slash fistfight required. there were enough unmapped MTB trails to really undermine the fun after awhile. many controls mapped in the middle of nowhere actually had a trail within 20m - which was no fun to realize after a few hundred meters of hand-to-hand combat.
little less happy on
review:
1, 3rd) Fine
2, 5th) fooled by a sub-contour depression, +0:20
3, 3rd) fine, but aimed a little farther off than necessary
4, 7th) stupid route choice, but at least the trail was fast +0:30
5, 6th) hesitant execution +0:20
6, 10th) ate a rock, didn't keep good track of distance, didn't read terrain well near the flag +1:20
7, 1st) okay, i guess
8, 13th) got to the major trail okay, saw the end of the loop, took a new bearing, then apparently ignored it. knew i was too far north if anything, but distracted by aaron and followed him around a bit. stared at that flast spot with the green marsh, thinking it was the clear marsh SW of the control. should've realized the terrain was dropping to the north. +9:30
9, 9th) followed an unmapped trail out of the control. hit the main trail, followed the spur trail, and picked up the wrong (unmapped) trail off the edge of the spur. paying too much attention to footwork to realize the crappy heading. followed another wrong, unmapped trail south before realizing the crap heading. hit the N-S stone wall and was flummoxed. got spanked by will when i took the E-W stone wall and he guessed well on a parallel unmapped trail. easy from there. +3:00
10, 5th) good first half, dropped too low, caught in the fight, missed the very helpful unmapped trail +0:45
11, 3rd) dumb choice to follow the unmapped trail E out of the control, should've bashed south. perfect execution on the second half, though. +0:20
12, 4th) took the wrong (unmapped, NE-heading, after the stream) trail, realized i was too low and went up to the ridge. +0:30
13, 8th) lucked out around a bunch of unmapped trails here (through lots of people searching at a walk), then blew it by heading 120m down the wrong trail. +1:30
14, 2nd) well, alright then
15, 6th) crappy bearing, got my ear pierced by a tree, briefly helped by an unmapped trail +0:30
16, 2nd) very helpful unmapped trail
F, 3rd) exit, stage west
bit of a theme, there. 18:35 down the toilet.
brendan asked what i expected before heading out, and i said 10min/k would be nice. no-mistake time would've been almost exactly that. shrug. 2.8k bonus over straightline. the park's nice - great, even - and the course could have been solid, but the map's sorely in need of a trail update. might even be good for MTBO - if there are enough trails out there.... hi-yo!