Training Log Archive: Rosstopher

Not the epic win I had in mind, but a fun Billygoat nonetheless. The meet was great, and I happily left with a much fonder impression of the forests of Bow NH than I previously held from the Boulder Dash.

I had a pretty good run actually, I had a weird issue with my right contact lense and I ended up just pulling it out completely on the starting line. So my right eye was blurry for the course. It was only noticeable at first, when I was still adjusting. Luckily I could really depend on others to get me to the control points at the beginning. I looked quickly and saw that skipping one would be a waste and then charged out of the gate after Erik and Clem. I was sorta just keeping with them for the first two controls. On 3, I went a little bit straighter and got a slight edge on them, went straightish to 4 as well ( decided it was still too early for me to skip), and Nate was with me here, we plowed through some pretty dense white woods, but came out on the trail very nicely and that meant the control was quite easy. 5 was the fork and I went right, but didn't execute very well. It was best to stay low by the swamp and then run the trail all the way, but I cut right up the hill and up and over to the trail. It was a bit of a slog through those woods, but Sergei was with me, so I thought I was in pretty good position. 6, just push through the swamp and then up the hill. I guess people had some difficulty here, but for me it went smoothly, and I started feeling like it was going to be a good race. I saw that 7 would be a logical skip, but I felt good still and decided to horde my skip until later ( I glanced over the rest and saw that 20 was on a hilltop, so I might skip that). As I came across to 8 I saw Hilly and then Sam going into the control, and tore out to the trail to the right on the way to 9. got to the flag with Andy Hall and Joe Brautigam, and did the next couple pretty well ( if not exactly on a straight line) little short controls. 12, was funny to me because I was expecting the terrain to drop and really the rocks were in a saddle not on a spur like I had imagined... I slowed down trying to make sense of this stuff and then Erik Nystrom caught up again. We were running sorta together on the next long one, well he slowly passed me and then really got away from me in the cleared area. We saw Alexei and Sergei here, and I was with them but stopped to rehang the flag at 13 ( trying to get good karma). 14 was the drink spot and I was in 6th position when I went through and I still had my skip.... I was feeling good. feeling good is not the same as being smart. I was most of the way to 15, before I realized that I should have skipped it. I found a nice ride though and I think I got ahead of Sergei and Alexei on this point. 16, -19 I was moving really well and just cruising but then I made the choice to go to 20 afterall. It was a stupid control to skip, because I wasn't going to save any climb really. I had to go right past it anyway, to get to 21. So I went off, but I got pushed right by the hillside ( happened to a few people, or more than a few) and got really confused. I didn't figure it out, and started to panic, I knew that I didn't have much time left in the race, so in my panic I chose to just cut my losses and skip. I didn't really know where I was though, so trying to get to 21 was tricky. I ended up getting really far right, and taking the trail around, which was slow, but at least I didn't get lost in the circle. 22, 23, and then finish.

I was 5 minutes or so back on the winners, but I think there were places in the race where I was a real contender. Erik was just 20 or 30 seconds ahead at 14, and he won, so I could have done a lot better in the end section of the race. I will post splits later, I have them written on the back of my map somewhere.

C • Erik 1