Race Evaluation
2008 Laramie Daze & US Champs: US Champs: GreenX Day 2
DWildfogel
| 1. | Started examining the route to #2 | ||||||
| 2. | Cautious after yesterday's disaster. Nearly a minute slower than Peter even though my navigation was perfect. Curved around a bit to the right (but not as far as Peter), keeping the two bigger aspen patches on my right. | ||||||
| 3. | +01:10 | Around the S end of the big aspen patch (didn't occur to me to go through), along the SE edge for 80m then up into the rocks. Saw George Minarik and another runner standing at a control on my left, that appeared to be a cliff; went there, but it was #113, not ours. Should have focused more on the map, but instead checked some rocks to the S. Then realized I needed to go back across the reentrant and further E, and found it. | |||||
| 4. | +00:35 | Headed SSE towards where the road crosses the stream connecting the aspen patches. Got a little lucky: there was a distinct footpath there through the aspens, leading me out to the E end of the S big patch. From there it was pretty easy to pick out the correct rocky hill. Went up the bare rock on the E side of the hill and then dived into the rocky area on the W side, Had to circle around the reentrant quite a bit (couldn't really see the map well enough) before finding the control. | |||||
| 5. | Glancing ahead, realized it was time to pick up the pace. From here to the end, ran very hard. Nailed this one, though I couldn't see the bag until I was practically there. | ||||||
| 6. | Around the left side of the big rocky hill, along the left side of the aspens, easy to pick out the 6m boulder. | ||||||
| 7. | This leg felt good, as I was able to navigate by lots of little features while running pretty fast. Across the fence and just S of the boulder under the red line, S of the rocky knoll with a control on it, N of the little aspen patch, then see the aspen patch at the top of the reentrant dead ahead. | ||||||
| 8. | Left of the two sets of rocks and then directly into the marsh. | ||||||
| 9. | +00:20 | Felt tired going uphill and was a bit sloppy: went thru the saddle 200m SSW of #8 instead of to the left of the hill as I intended. Took about :15 to sort things out when I came through the other side. | |||||
| 10. | Ran hard to the fence, crossing by the two bare rock hilltops. As I approached the aspens, could see the embedded boulder cluster to my left. A couple of steps into the aspens I could see the central clearing ahead and a bit to my right. Veered into that, turned left as that clearing pointed directly at the bag, and by the time I got to the end of the clearing I could see the bag in the next (tiny) clearing. | ||||||
| 11. | +00:10 | Seemed to take longer than I expected to get around to the SSW side of the aspens, so slowed down a bit to make sure I understood what I was seeing ahead of me. Ran to the boulder on the spur on the W edge of the circular patch of sage, then between the two big boulder clusters split by the red line and directly to the bag. | |||||
| 12. | Really pushing myself physically now. (After the race, and all through the afternoon and evening, I had a mega-headache and a nasty stomach ache - definitely pushed myself to the limit.) As I ran across the flats, tried to line myself up halfway between the rocky outcrop to the left and the patch of aspens to the right. Passes just left of some rocky ground and then noticed that it was indeed on the map - and also spotted a little circle of white ahead on the map, and looking up saw a lone tree. Used that to help keep me on line. Up the hill, across the top, and nailed it. | ||||||
| 13. | Passed N of the two little patches of aspens, S of the boulder ih the open area, and headed for the lowest saddle, which was visually detectable. Ran about halfway up in the sage and then had to walk the rest of the way to the top. The control was dead ahead, down the hill. | ||||||
| 14. | +00:45 | Took a bearing, which pointed me directly at a rock an appropriate distance away, so off I went. Got to the other side of the rock, and there was a bag, so punched my watch but then noticed that the control code wasn't mine. Lost a few secs just in disbelief that I'd blown that one. Swivled around, noticed a bag downhill, ran there, and luckily it was the right one. | |||||
| 15. | Body and mind aching now, it was all I could do keep running and to stay focussed on the correct set of rocks. To the right of the 3 boulders, then curled left into the reentrant and there was the bag. Had to walk the last few steps. | ||||||
| 16. | +00:10 | Up the little reentrant, stepped between two giant rocks. Saw aspens a short way ahead and bare rock beyond them, so cut through, turned left and ran down the bare rock and then curled to the right, finding myself in the open between two sets of large boulders. A quick look at the map told me I needed to go a bit back and to the right, where I found the bag between the large boulders. | |||||
| 17. | +00:10 | Hard to concentrate now,I couldn't tell one rock from another. Just followed my bearing and the contour til I came to the bag. | |||||
| F. | Gave it all I had and just nipped another guy (who had initially seemed too far ahead to catch) at the finish line. |
Total Time Lost - 00:03:20