O - competition race (Hudson Highlander) 5:23:41 30.4 km (10:39 / km) +1015m9:07 / km
Nice race, mostly ran clean except for a couple misses, some technical, some stupid.
Off with the hoard at the mass start and ran well trying to follow the really narrow course lines marked on the map. Ran too quick to #3 and overshot the control by 100m. Gradually caught back up the group I was running with, and watched them all go too far L out of #6 and head for the swamp. Rick Dewitt and I stayed on-line and dropped the others.
Ran together for all of map 2.
He was slow in the final HH stop, so I was on my own with one follower. Bit of searching at #23 (1 min) and #24 (3 min), but moved okay. Then ran down the road too far for #25 and ended up way down the spur, almost off the map. Finally relocated and made it back for a major time loss (15 min). But by then Rick had passed me and was just ahead. Caught him at #29 and ran in together thru the end.
Legs were okay, but tired for the climbs on the last map. Hamstrings felt just about ready to cramp, but never did. Maybe the 6 gu's helped. Sitting with Kenny in the parking lot later, I made the wrong move and the left leg totally did cramp, so hard I thrashed over and crushed a soda can.
Trail Running (Indian Arrowhead Preserve) 1:40:42 [3] 5.77 mi (17:27 / mi) +347m14:42 / mi
Tried out a forest area I spotted on the way to Keene, an almost three hundred acre preserve. Nice main trail, foot traffic only, although signs of vehicles further into the woods. Secondary trails and old roads not marked and wandered off into the rainy wilderness. Saved by the garmin -- picked some loops heading in the right direction and eventually hooked up with the main trail again. Good, open forest; will have to try some bushwacking once I figure out where the boundaries go.