Race Evaluation
NEOOC Kendall Lake Night-O: Wacko
hkleaf
| 1. |
Bad route choice Lacked confidence Hesitated Unused to map Unused to terrain +01:30 | Gravel path to the road's bend. Original plan was to use building on left as my cue to go into the woods. But I didn't spot the building and decided to just jump in around the bend. Woods were nice but with quite a few deadfalls. Headed ESE to catch the trail. Then ran the trail around to the bridge. Took compass bearing the climbed up spur straight to control. A better route would be following the spur from the road to trail, then contour along to control. | |||||
| 2. | Pretty much contouring along. Slipped and felt here, so going slow afterwards. | ||||||
| 3. | On a bearing, right on to the control. Lots of detouring around deadfalls thru the green. | ||||||
| 4. | Again on a bearing. A few folks around this area. | ||||||
| 5. | S to the trail, then ran all the way until the 2nd pronounced left turn. Might have jumped into the woods 10m too soon, but didn't take long to spot the control. | ||||||
| 6. | Back out to the trail again. ran it to the first junction (NE corner of rough open). Took the right, then cut across to the other N-S trail that led me directly to the control. | ||||||
| 7. |
Bad route choice +03:00 | Punched #6 at the same time as another guy. I decided to take xc route to #7 while he took trail route. Down the slope skirting the edge of the green slashes. Around N side of distinct tree, kinda thru the marsh (dry) to the stream. Along S bank of stream to around the trail crossing. Looked kinda green (deadfall) along stream so I bailed to higher ground, skirting rough open to its NW end. Then down across stream and up to fence where control was hung. Guy on trail route punched 10s ahead of me. | |||||
| 8. |
Lacked confidence +00:45 | Up hill along fence to trail. NW on trail to other side of spur. Then off into woods on rough bearing, looking for reentrant. Should've used pace counting to aid my navigation. I was hesitant and didn't go low enough to spot the top of reentrant. I stopped feeling I had travelled far enough. This is when a couple passed by from near opposite direction. I turned to see where they were heading and sure enough the control was 20m away a bit down on the slope. | |||||
| 9. | I opted for the trail route this time. So SW back out to trail, down the hill, across bridge, around and up a hill. I cut off the short U shaped section to hop on the other trail heading NW to the control. In retrospect, a more direct route may have been just as fast. Certainly would've provided much greater training value. | ||||||
| 10. |
Did not follow plan Confused parallel features Could not relocate +09:20 | Didn't want to wuss out on the trail route again, so I went xc from the get go. Ran down the spur just left of redline, keeping the stream to my right. In a lapse of concentration/judgement, I crossed the stream near the bottom of the spur. Thinking that I was already W of the Y stream junction, I started heading up the hill without checking my compass. In reality, I hadn't reached the Y junction yet. I was also climbing the hill in the N direction instead of W. The result: I came out into the open field NE of the control. Things didn't quite match up, but it was too dark to really distinguish the shape of the field and orient myself. I got confused when I spotted a trail coming onto the field. Looked in vain on the map area S of #10 for that trail. Never found it and foolishly dismissed it as a map issue. If only I had widen my view to 250m radius around #10, I would've easily spotted the big trail on the adjacent ridge. Instead I moved NW along the field's edge (just as I had originally planned) and found a distinct tree. Since there's a green circle immediately SE of #10, I thought I had finally figured out my location, and happily dove into the woods looking for the top of reentrant. Coincidentally, the parallel ridge that I was on also had a distinct tree in roughly the same location. So instead of finding the control, I ended up swimming around some dense vegetation, momentarily trapped. Eventually, I made it back out to the field and found a trail post (intersection). I finally alerted me to my actual position - I was basically 435m NW down the trail from #9!!! 11:50 had elapsed, when it would've taken a mere 2:30 if I took the trail route!!! The rest of the leg from the intersection was uneventful. A couple of things about what I should've done. The obvious safe choice is the trail route. Second to that is running the left trail out of #9 to the infamous field, then cut WSW into woods, cross stream, and back up slope to #10. This would be a better/faster route choice than mine. As for the execution of my route, I should've sticked to the spur until I hit the Y stream junction. Then cross to W side, along to next reentrant, then W up the spur to open field, spot the single tree and attack from there. | |||||
| 11. | Back tracked on trail to intersection, then straight up to the hill top, keeping the tip of green veg to my right. | ||||||
| 12. | Angled downhill NE to the trail on right. Turned right at deadend, around flatland keeping track of my progress. Turned left at SE corner of lake thru a minor trail. Left once again at deadend, then left fork by the rough open, up and down the S side of knoll. Trail ended right at the tree (control). | ||||||
| F. | Ran along the edge of vegetation. |
Total Time Lost - 00:14:35