1. | Felt good, recognized the control feature but went around on the wrong side; the right side. | ||||||
2. | Along the right side of the reentrant until it got more shallow. I crossed it to aim off and picket it up before the reentrant ended. The trail on the left might have better. | ||||||
3. | I aimed off to the right a bit and got on the trail. At the trail bend, I crossed and found the other trail at the bend. I was reluctant to trust the trail bend in relation to the rootstock. I was off to the right which is what I was feeling was correct, rather than what the map showed. Fortunately, I was close enough to see the control on my left. I gave it away for another person. | ||||||
4. | I ran strait, marking the first ditch crossing, then the green of the marsh. At some point I thought I was seeing the road so I adjust to the left. The control was slightly on my left at the end. | ||||||
5. | I found myself paralleling the trail when I wanted to just follow the reentrant. I decided to cross it on the trail. I counted reentrants on my left getting there. At the end, it seemed like there were three so I wondered if the control was in the wrong one. As I got to it, Eddie Bergeron had come in behind me. | ||||||
6. | I ran south on bearing and roughly kept track of reentrants on my left while getting to the road. After crossing it, I think I saw the marsh on my right. I also crossed paths with Jon Pifer somewhere near #12. I counted reentrants and knolls while staying on the ridge, then attacked. I was a bit to the right but corrected when I thought I'd gotten high enough. | ||||||
7. | +05:00 | The marsh looked like better running so I backtracked into it. I wanted to follow the ridge on my left but the vegetation pushed me more to the right. I recall the slope being higher on my right so I dropped to the left. My GPS track doesn't tell the same story. It shows me cutting left as I remember, but coming up short about halfway there. I did a slow stop and start loop figuring things out by the contours. | |||||
8. | +09:00 | Going straight, things were matching up to just past halfway. I must have been a little too much to the left and just short because I was seeing reentrants slope away to the north. I backed up thinking I was too far and started thinking I knew where I was but ultimately, I went back to the half way mark and the knoll that I attacked #6 from. After that, I followed the reentrant better to the control. | |||||
9. | +01:45 | I held a good bearing but hit the knoll in the right. The features on the map were small. I couldn't tell an elongated knoll from a dot knoll. The elongated one I found was bite enough for a contour and I wasted time checking all sides before correcting. | |||||
10. | +02:00 | Out to marsh and the marsh bend before attacking. I couldn't make out the features along the way and hit the border of the wildlife refuge. I turned left from there when right would have taken me to the control. It was just green enough in the area to make it hard to see. | |||||
11. | Straight, reading the marsh on my left along the way. After missing #10. I ate a Gu and wondered if stopping to clear my head and get some sugar helped me be more accurate. | ||||||
12. | I watched my bearing well but seeing deadfall in one reentrant, I went around to the right. Things stopped matching up briefly so I cut left. After that the contours matched better but it seemed like they could have been sharper here. | ||||||
13. | +02:45 | I went straight but didn't see the marsh which should have been on my right when leaving #12. Wondering if I had drifted, I did see a reentrant after crossing a bigger one but I didn't see the control. GPS show me pulling up short. Nit seeing it, I backtracked and saw the two ditches. That was enough to get me there but it seemed a long way. Some one was standing in front of the control when I got there so that I had a hard time seeing it. | |||||
14. | I took off straight then wondered if I should have gone around the green on the right side. I could hear foot steps behind so I kept straight. I followed the green around and remembered a leg through here the year before. The edge was distinct enough at times but near the end it was more sketchy. | ||||||
15. | Going straight I wondered if I should have used the trail on the right. Having to cross the marsh kept me from worrying about it for a while but when I got to the marsh, I wasn't sure how far up it I was. It appeared dry where I crossed so I thought I was too far south. I angled more west and went slow. I saw Tim Good converging from my right. After a few more steps I stopped and saw it to my left. I got there just ahead of Tim who had seen it at about the same time. | ||||||
16. | +01:00 | Going straight, I couldn't pinpoint where I was as I crossed linear features. I was paralleling a trail at one point. I came to the reentrant system and saw a control on my left. I also saw afterward the the other part of the forked reentrant. I felt the control that I saw was not mine but went there anyway because I hadn't had much confidence in my navigating today. When I checked the code, I backed out and went to the correct fork. | |||||
17. | +00:45 | A magnifier would have helped for this one. I was tired and didn't want to cross a lot of reentrants. I'd also forgotten temporarily that they were just 5 ft contours. I went around when going more straight would have probably been better. Once I got to the trail dropping into the reentrants near the control, I was not sure if the control was on a trail or not. I mistook the intermittent stream dashes to be a trail. Checking the description I knew it was going to be off the trail. I crossed the second bridge and went up the spur past the control without finding it. I saw another runner cross my path over to another spur that was to my right and that made sense. | |||||
F. | Out along the right side of the reentrant. The download station looked out of place to me while still in the woods. It looked like a moon bounce. I was tired, wet but not too cold. My right knee ached a bit. |
Total Time Lost - 00:22:15