Race Evaluation
US Classic Champs: Red Day 2
Cristina
| 1. | +04:00 | I had the last start of the day, which suited me fine, but it was sort of lonely out there. Looked like there was an obvious route to the first control, attacking off of the trail from the road. I guess I didn't actually get to the trail, or maybe I did. Not sure. I wasn't reading the contours well, and I think I didn't actually have a plan or attackpoint, I just kind of thought I'd see it. I ended up back at the road corner NW of the control and just went the right direction. Now I can see that that is following a spur, but I couldn't tell that at the time (would have helped!). Tired! | |||||
| 2. | Ran (sort of) to the wash and planned to go up the smaller streambed but instead ran up the spur instead and more or less checked off features and looked for the small cluster after the big clusters on the side of the hill. That kind of worked, but it was slow and lucky. | ||||||
| 3. | +01:00 | Went straight, right through the bare rock and over into the reentrant on the other side, expecting to see the control, as there's only one reentrant on the map (that I can see). Though of course, it was the "middle" reentrant, so there must be more. Felt that I had perhaps drifted more right (downhill), so went left to the next reentrant and saw the bag. | |||||
| 4. | +02:00 | I was already exhausted and frustrated, so I ran straight up to the trail and went left to the road. Jumped off at the second small openish area before the jink in the road and crossed over to the spur. Found myself in a featureless area and figured I was right of the control. It was about 50m to my left. Still really tired. Stood around a lot, not a great route. | |||||
| 5. | +02:00 | Ran left of the line through the openish area (still haven't quite figured out what that's supposed to look like compared to white) to the stream junction. Good plan, except that from there I went way right and ended up in the little reentrants right of the control close to the main wash. Took me a bit to figure it out, but then finding the control was no problem. | |||||
| 6. | Road seemed like a rational pick this time, so of course I went for it. Headed straight to te road and followed it to the last wash, heading straight down the spur and looking out for the end of the rocky stuff. Didn't really see that stuff, but was in the right place spur-wise and got lucky. Lot of hesitating. | ||||||
| 7. | +01:00 | Crossed the first streambed and through the rocks just right of the line, only to stop short and look for the bag at that cluster. It wasn't there. | |||||
| 8. | +01:00 | This should have been a piece of cake. I swear I went over *three* high points, not two. I started scouring the spur after the "second" and didn't see it, so kept going. I don't know what all those big rocks were that I was looking at, it just doesn't match up. | |||||
| 9. | +09:00 | This was a doozie. Spent a good amount of time deciding which way to go, figuring that wasn't time wasted. Decided to just gun it for the big wash, aiming left, and then head up over on the trail. I guess I wasn't paying attention to anything at all, because I ended up in front of the cliffs by the line from 5-6. Yikes! Figured it out, swore, and slowly made my way back over the the trail.Took it up around the rocky area and then straight to the next streambed. I thought I had dropped down to the right of the cliffs, but I guess I was in the middle of them, because I was left of the stream (and the control). | |||||
| 10. | +02:00 | Followed the stream from the trail down tot he main sandy bed and then up on to the top of the spur. I was further left of the line than I realized, which caused me to stop a lot and look for the saddles on the map. I wasn't always exactly sure where I was, but it certainly didn't look like anything *past* the control, so I kept going and eventually saw the open area and the cliff. | |||||
| 11. | +03:00 | Followed the reentrant down to the stream intersection, and then straight pas the rightmost black x and... kept going, left of the control. I was on top of the cliffs beyond the control, which seems quite obvious now, but at the time it was bewildering. Sort of made sense of it and stumbled on the control. | |||||
| 12. | +04:00 | Plan was to stay right of the rocks, contouring along to the trail, and then attacking from above. Somehow I ended up near 13 on the trail. Some dude asked me if I needed help. Maybe I should have said yes, but I didn't. Getting desperate to be done with the course, so just ran in the general direction and got lucky. | |||||
| 13. | Ran straight looking for rocky lumps and saw the right one. | ||||||
| 14. | +03:00 | Ran left of the line to the road and then to the small trail, expecting to take it all the way across, just left of the rocks. But I bailed when I was the down-up of the traila nd tried to go right, which didn't work so well. Eventually realized that the cluster was on a flattish part below all the other rocks and dropped down, but by that time I had already passed the bag and had to turn back. | |||||
| 15. | Somehow managed to pass 2 people on the way to this control, even though I still felt like I had no idea what I was doing. | ||||||
| F. | +00:05 | I left the path and ran into the brush two or three times on this run in. Unbelievable. And I could hear the awards. |
Total Time Lost - 00:32:05