------------------------------------------
Morgan Territory. COW Stage 2. Start at 11:14. Cold (in the 30's).
------------------------------------------
Brown Middle. 3.2 km, 120m climb, 20 c. 3rd overall on Brown out of 34 in 40:53, 2nd in M70 out of 6.
1. Geraint Edmunds ----------- 3629
2. Glen Tryson (M65) --------- 4040
3. DW ----------------------------- 4053
4. Steve Tarry (M65) ----------- 4108
5. Greg Yarkie ------------------- 4212
6. John Harbuck ---------------- 4656
7. Penny DeMoss (F65) ------ 4820
8. Chuck Spalding ------------ 4850
9. Sari Jetsonen (F55) -------- 4909
10. Amalie Ertmann (F14) --- 5418
3 km to get to start bothered some people. Got me sufficiently warmed up that I changed out of the long sleeved top I had under my O-shirt.
Turned out to be my highest ranking points for the week, though it wasn't a great run. It was the toughest course physically and probably navigationally as well, and 20% of the competitors were over 1:52, which led to the high ranking. Also, though overall my split rankings were much worse than yesterday, stayed out of any large errors.
1:20 error on #3, following another Brown runner (Russell Green) instead of reading the terrain. Lost time on #14, maybe 20 seconds, and was lucky to find it, but it doesn't look that way in the splits because so many others did worse. Small errors in the circle at 4, 10, 19. Hesitations on 2, 5, 8. Suboptimal route on 15 cost 30-35 seconds. Somehow lost :12 on #20 (:18 to Glen), dropping from 5 seconds ahead of him to third place. (This despite being only 1 sec behind the fastest time from #21 to F.)
1. Rough compass to the road, aiming off to the right a little, just looking for good places to run. Hit the road a little too far to the right, but no trouble getting to the control. 4th fastest split, 11 seconds behind Geraint, the leader.
2. Took the little trail a bit up the hill to get around the rocks. Didn't recognize the thicket until I was closer to the right side, just went around that way, a bit longer than optimal. 8th fastest, 27 behind Chuck, 21 behind Glen.
3. Didn't look at the map carefully enough. Saw Russell Green ahead, in the direction of my bearing, so went that way, down the spine of the spur. Thought I'd gone too far, but then saw Russ ahead moving like he'd seen a bag, so I went there - but it wasn't ours. Knowing we'd gone too far, looked bag, realized the control was off the spur, ran in that general direction, figuring I'd see the bag since it was now on my side of the rock, and I soon did. Lost 1:20.
4. Contour a bit, then up to the road. (Recognized I'd taken a similar route 2 year ago.) As I was running along the road, Vladimir G came up, so I guess the green was more passable than mapped. Foolishly stayed on the road all the way to the junction with the trail, then went into the stream of rocks. No control, checked the map, realized it must be higher, looked up and there was Vladimir punching in. 4th, 28 behind Geraint, 13 behind Glen.
5. Contour and pace, stop to examine the hillside below, figured out what was what, and went straight down and found the bag. 4th, 6 behind Steve T.
6. Read the vegetation very well, went straight to the bag, spotting Leslie punching in as the bag came into view. 3rd, 7 behind Amalie, 2 behind Geraint.
7. Climbed at an angle, aiming for the thicket, which I recognized. Went around the high side, under the fence, contoured, noting the one line reentrant just below, and kept running for the nose of the spur. Thought I'd picked out the correct tree, and there was someone walking to it, but I didn't see the bag. Quickly realized she was blocking my view and that bag was indeed there. Fastest, 1 sec ahead of Geraint and Glen.
8. Down to the bottom of the reentrant, spotted the fallen tree to my left and realized I was a little too close to it. Took a bearing, looked up, saw a fallen tree, climbed to it, but no bag. Checked the map, saw that I hadn't noticed that there was one fallen tree before the one I wanted, so continued on and soon saw the bag. 4th, 23 behind Glen, but only 5 behind Harbuck in second.
9. Hill was tiring, but pushed myself up, aiming to get to the edge of the spur right at the correct contour. Recognized the two trees and the fallen tree when I got there, so knew I was good. Contoured, soon saw the correct fallen tree and knew the bag would be behind it. 2nd, 1 behind Amalie, 1 ahead of Glen, 2 ahead of Geraint (a victory for me on an uphill leg).
10. Ran strongly to the boulder on the side of the spur, then up and contoured on a bearing to rocky ground - but no bag. Took a quick look around, and saw the bag on a different patch of rocky ground, up and a little behind me. 5th, 15 behind Glen and 14 behind Geraint, so I lost maybe 8 to 10 seconds.
11. For some reason, what I was seeing ahead of me didn't make sense, so went a little left to get to the road. Down the road to the junction, then continued down to the trail. Along the trail, careful to take the downhill fork. About the time my pace count ran out, looked down the hill and saw the tree, the bag, and the Gookins. It was further downhill than I expected, but the map was correct. 6th, 33 behind Glen; probably lost 15 - 20, mostly leaving 10, partly being cautious on the little trail.
12. Angled back up to the trail, hitting it right at the lone tree. Contoured and could see the lip of the ditch coming up. A little disappointed when I mounted the lip and the bag was a contour higher. 4th, 22 behind Glen; he was the only one of the leaders faster than me on this leg.
13. While headed to 12, examined the ridge in the distance I'd need to go over to get to 13, so when I left 12, there was no hesitation. Ran the most efficient route I could to the top of the wedge of clearing pointing to the control, kept going down in the same direction, nailed it. 2nd, 1 behind Geraint.
14. Navigationally toughest leg of the day. Tempted by the unmapped trail leading down the reentrant, but then how would you get around the green? So, climbed a little and contoured, but really could not identify features and soon really didn't know where I was. Kept contouring, figuring at the worst I'd get to the nose of the spur and see the open area where 12 was. Way down below, beyond a big patch of green, saw Evan. Knew I had to get down there somehow, and finally saw an opening to go down. Stopped, not really knowing what to do next. Looked to my right, and there was a control. Please be mine! Amazingly, it was. Very lucky. 4th, 19 behind Geraint, 7 behind Rick McBee. Glen lost nearly 4 minutes here.
15. The low route looked like too much down and up (that was a misjudgment, it was significantly shorter and thus better overall), so I contoured around the spur, climbed to the plateau, angled over to the trail and then a little down to the control. Executed what I did very well, but the route choice cost me about 30 seconds. 12th, 42 seconds behind Glen.
16. Down the trail, keep going straight at the t-junction, over the little spur, whoa, a fence? Checked the map, yeah, there is a fence, but I hadn't noticed it on the map (which is what just about everyone said). Now, is it behind the big rock in front of me? Just then Jeff Lanam was coming up (not sure why), so figured might as well go down and look, and there it was. 8th, 14 secs behind Harbuck.
17. Contoured, then climbed a little when I saw the boulder, coming out on the trail by the fallen tree. The hillside ahead was very steep, so didn't want to go down too far and then have to climb. So, contoured until I could see the rock and the control below, and then slalomed down. 3rd, 6 ahead of Glen, but a surprising 30 behind Geraint.
18. Could see the big boulder below in the reentrant, and could see on the map that I wanted to contour on the next spur about a contour above that boulder, so angled down, contoured, did a great job of not slowing down to check the control on the lone tree I passed, nailed it. 4th, 13 behind Geraint (he must've been flying at this point), 9 behind Steve.
19. Running hard on a bearing, but didn't understand the clue, because I couldn't see any tip of open land on the map (too narrow for my eyes) and didn't look for it in the terrain. As I approached the woods, saw Penny heading down, looking like maybe she was still looking for the control, so perhaps that made me lean left a little, but then I realized she must've already punched, so I looked a bit to the right and saw it (and a fast young woman [I forget who] approaching it [properly, through the sliver of open land). Had to climb a little, costing me several seconds. 11th, 14 behind (that's 50%) Sue K, but only 8 behind Glen in 2nd.
20. Was actually 5 secs ahead of Glen at this point, but he gained 18 on me on this simple leg! Perhaps having seen Penny going down through the woods influenced me: I was sure the control I could see down there couldn't be mine, but I slowed to check the map anyway, and my angle down the road was too far to the right. 12th, 18 behind Glen.
F. Surprisingly, 2nd, tied with Glen, only one sec behind Amalie and 1 ahead of Sue.
WinSplits
RouteGadget
[Orienteering race]