Race Evaluation
Hillbilly Goat: Billygoat Gruff
TimGood
| 1. | +00:40 | Can not find the course on the map so slow out of the start. Follow the crowd into the woods. Like an idiot I keep following when they turn S on trail. I had intended to go W to next trail. Run down a crappy trail with the nice road just 10 meters away. Dave Levine is among the smart ones on the road. Peer pressure is to much and everyone joins us on the trail. We cut in somewhere watch the lead pack stray off SW of the control, and someone finds the bag. I am a little behind Mark Dominie at this point. | |||||
| 2. | Meant to take the upper trail but pulled along by Mark and end up on lower. | ||||||
| 3. | +01:00 | Uphill to trail, then out to road. Leave Mark behind and trying to keep Ross in sight. Cut in at what I think is a good point, but is apparently early. Do not see Ross anymore. Randy goes by but does not seem to be heading to 4 yet. Reach veg. boundary and while I am hesitating Mark comes in. Follow him to control. Marty is there also. | |||||
| 4. | +01:30 | Behind Mark as we go straight line to curved trail. Trail to S of control then cut in. Randy is ahead and has cut in earlier. Mark stays on trail a little longer. Circle is misplaced to W so we all miss it. Might have avoided the error if I had had time to copy the control descriptions to my punch card. Randy & I head back up the stream. Mark and others go elsewhere. | |||||
| 5. | Randy takes off trying to drop the others. I follow as best I can. | ||||||
| 6. | +01:00 | Randy runs on while I took a drink before punching. Time person must have recorded my time before the drink since official time was 7:27. I did not want to hurt myself crashing downhill so went at a good pace but in control. Randy was doing the same since he stayed in sight. Down some shallow reentrant pausing to check off the trails. Decided we were a little E so shaded W and then saw trail to W. Meanwhile Randy went right in to the bag. Saw him running down trail to 7 as I cut back. That is the last time I see Randy. | |||||
| 7. | +00:10 | Ken is approaching as I leave and I see Marty coming in on the trail moments later. Trail then cut in. Minor hesitation when I do not see the bag at first. | |||||
| 8. | +02:00 | (FT) I had tried to evaluate the windows while running earlier but the course printing was so light and the OOB overprint on the U made it hard to tell. U window looked much better but I could not be sure. Did not want to deal with the out of bounds, all the warnings about horses made me wary, and I was suspicious of anything that looked that obvious. Decided I needed the practice in the woods and took the trail to the F window and FT. I did need the practice but it cost me lots of time. Now the U window looks shorter, easier, and would have helped me pick a better route to (21). I also screwed up the control when I could not see it from the road, then cut in late. | |||||
| 9. | +01:00 | (RF) Contoured around. Made poor time in the pines and was wishing I had taken the other window. Passed by Peter Dady coming into the reentrant. | |||||
| 10. | +00:40 | (PF)Trail around. Not very fast on uphill. Should have gone straight line, or used a different order. I think Peter went to (KF) | |||||
| 11. | +03:20 | (KF) Trail to bend then down to reentrant. Stopped to take a leak. Missed low but hit a wet area so thought I was still high in marsh. Turned around at property boundary. | |||||
| 12. | (FI) Straight. Afraid I might miss it since there were several small clearings in the area. | ||||||
| 13. | (Exchange) Through cabins, to clearing. Trail and parking area (both of which are still not mapped) then came in on road. Marty popped out just ahead of me and appeared to head to Pygmy finish as I went to exchange. Peter who passed me at 10 is also just ahead. | ||||||
| 14. | I do not own a trail bike so will be running the 2nd loop. Drink a lot and replace my bottle with a full Gookinade I prepared earlier. | ||||||
| 15. | (13) Take a bunch of trails to (22) while I look over the route. Looks like a lot of trails which could give the bikes an opportunity. Not worried about runners catching me because I figure anybody fast is already ahead of me after the F window screwups. Should have gone by field edges. Plan a better route for later on the leg from (22) | ||||||
| 16. | +02:20 | (14) Trail S then SE. Running a little slower than I should. Go all the way to jct W of control and leave trail at bend. 1:50 for a pit stop. Hit stream N of trail. Stream is dry and I think it might be trail so go out to road to relocate. | |||||
| 17. | +00:30 | (15) Spend to much time deciding which way to go. Take the road N for the good running and hope the climb does not kill me. NE road looks to long. No shade on road. See Peter coming down road on bike. He offers to trade his bike. | |||||
| 18. | (16) Trail, then cut across at bend. Have to force myself to keep up speed in woods. Eat a power gel. | ||||||
| 19. | (17) Trail W, then cut across to SW trail at bend. Just before stream crossing leave trail and slog up the hill straight at 17. Walk most of uphill. | ||||||
| 20. | (18) Two full cups of water. Up to road, then take trail NW. At road jct head straight in. Do not see indistinct trail. | ||||||
| 21. | +00:20 | (19) Trail E, planning to cut corner but go all the way to jct before heading N. See Ross going in to (18). At stream head straight for (19). Come out slightly E and run E before realizing my error. | |||||
| 22. | +00:40 | (20) Thinking of the finish, and knowing Ross is behing me I speed up some. See Ross again and soon after that, Ben. I go W and across the fields. Did not see control from trail and run by. Have to stop and look. | |||||
| 23. | +02:30 | (21) Head back up trail to fields. Ross with Ben just behind have made up a lot of time. Should have continued across fields then S, or cut corner before fields and aimed for roads. Instead, I go uphill to fields then take small trail S back downhill to road. Stupid, and the small trail was really bad running also. Up the road some, then S onto trail, leaving it at the white woods. Came into clearing on trail from W. Missed the pre-race instructions about the last 2 controls and did not see in the meet notes. Since I had no bike I skipped over the note which began with 'on the bike loop' Spend 30 seconds trying to find a punch hidden in all those streamers. | |||||
| 24. | +03:00 | (22) Back down trail to jct. Trail to N not very obvious. Took it to get to trail W along the semi open. Must have gotten on wrong one because I hit an unexpected jct but it did not look like one on direct route. I could not see any branch to N (to where I intended to be) and was afraid to go S since I did not know where I was. Paniced and went straight W through the crap. It was horrible, nearly cramped up several times. Just got through any way I could. Came out at trail right next to control. | |||||
| F. | (Fin) No bikes in sight. Had already planned this route on way to 13. Trail to clearing. Over to cows and along the edge and in. Had not noticed the gully between the clearings when picking the route. |
Total Time Lost - 00:20:40