Race Evaluation
WCOC Trout Brook A-Event: Red
PatDunlavey
| 1. | Sort of strange White leg takes us to the real start of our course. | ||||||
| 2. | |||||||
| 3. | |||||||
| 4. | +00:40 | Got suckered by quasi-knoll to SW | |||||
| 5. | +00:30 | I tried to study this leg and choose a route before punching #4, but I still didn't have a plan. I almost defaulted to my standard seat-of-the-pants purple-line navigating, hoping to pick up bits and pieces of trails along the way. Finally, I realized that the trail/valley to the left presented the best approach. Unfortunately, I had already ventured a ways more or less on the line, so had to climb over the rocky ridge, rather than cut around the south end of it. After that, I was clean. Not fast though. | |||||
| 6. | +02:15 | Confused on trail and green, ended up 75m east of the control and VERY confused. Finally convinced myself that I was seeing the pond. | |||||
| 7. | +00:10 | Seemed to take forever to find a place to cross the crossable marsh. | |||||
| 8. | +00:40 | Never saw the trail I supposedly ran on. Uncertain (and therefore, slow) until I saw the stony marsh. More certain after I went through the saddle and started making sense out of the green. | |||||
| 9. | +00:20 | Met up with Steve Worthington and we paced each other along for a few controls. Generally, I lead, but he managed to keep close. It was fun while it lasted. I misread the contours, thinking the cliff was on the west side of the knoll. I need a magnifier! | |||||
| 10. | +00:15 | Southeast and up the rocks - moving very slowly. I only missed (one knoll to the right) by maybe 15 seconds, Francis. | |||||
| 11. | |||||||
| 12. | Went around to right, which definitely was the better route from a safety standpoint. | ||||||
| 13. | +02:00 | I was starting to run out of gas at this point, and walked much of the uphill. No sign of Steve. Missed the control to the left (hit the stonewall) inexplicably, since I had a rock-solid attack point from the pits just before the trail catching feature. One minute on the bobble, one minute on just going too slow. | |||||
| 14. | +00:40 | Mystified for 10 seconds when I met the fence, and spent another 30 seconds wondering which way to turn - finally went to the right crossing point. | |||||
| 15. | +10:00 | My waterloo. Having carefully memorized the course setter's notes, and having seen how formidable the uncrossable fence was, I was determined not be caught on the wrong side going to the last control. Glancing at the last control and seeing that it was on the right side of the fence, I said "Aha!!", and ran back through the gate to the right side of the fence, and bombed downhill through rapidly thickening brambles. About halfway down, I looked at my map and realized that I wanted to be between two uncrossable fences, not to the right of just one. I kept going with the fevered hope that some kind of solution would present itself - a crossing point perhaps. Finally, I came down to the point where I could see my daughter Maria at the last control waiting for me, so near and yet so far away! I contemplated scaling the fence, but it looked more than a bit dangerous (barbed wire at the top of 8 feet of stock wire), and I also didn't want to do something that could get the meet organizers into trouble. As I trudged back through the briars to the gate near #14, I seriously contemplated "loosing" my punch card. | |||||
| F. | Threw my card and map into the Eurovan - nothing personal, but I've had better days. Loved the map though, and I really want to come back and redeem myself. |
Total Time Lost - 00:17:30