Training Log Archive: Charlie

Long Brown course at West Point. Very sore and stiff to start and feeling vulnerable. Not my best navigation, either. On the way to 1 there was a sea of green pointy stuff, wandering this way and that to get through with as little damage as possible, I ended up way off to the right, just left of the big patch of bare rock and cliffs, then pulled up short and looked pretty hard at some other dot knolls along the way. Must have lost at least 3 minutes with that foolishness. Then I intended to go south to the trail and around to 2, but another sea of green and I found myself angling uphill to get away from it, finally crossed the power line and came over the top. Not much difficulty finding it, but a very slow route, so maybe another 2 minutes. Then 3 was not too bad, especially once I realized I had to go past the power line first. 4 was fine, a couple of extra cliffs along the way, but basically right on line. It was along the way to 4 when I looked at my watch and saw the dreaded 00:00:00. Sometimes I punch it to start and it beeps, but doesn't actually start. Not the first time this has happened. I really need to watch it to confirm that it is actually starting. So I missed the first 17 minutes or so of the course with my track. Then 5 was more or less ok. I was a line low coming to it, and it looked more like a cliff than a dot knoll to me, but it had a flag on it, so I had to go punch it. 6 was fine. I found the slot in the big cliff and followed it up all the way and in. Now I understand what happened at 7. I was heading south to get around the big cliffs halfway, found a place to climb up and thought I was going straight east and into it, but with all the up and down I got off to the south. Well off, halfway to 8. Saw the people heading south and had to go back north a fair amount. 8 should have been easy, and it wasn't too bad, but I did end up having to hook around back into it. 9 was just a mystery. I thought I had come right into it, came over a knoll and into a rocky area at the foot, looking just like the map, but no control. So I decided to wander N a bit and found it. Didn't look quite as convincing as the first place I found, but it did have a flag. 10 was pretty much a disaster. Headed for 7, but then I didn't actually find 7 the second time. Then I thought the giant cliff between 10 and 11 was the cliff with bare rocks near 10, so that led to all kinds of unhappiness, before I figured out I was too far East and got over to the right area. Then swapping leads with Janet Findlay for a while. 11 was fine, 12 was fine, although I had trouble getting out of 12 and ended up going back north to the trail instead of having the discipline to fight out east or south. I saw Boris sitting by 13, who encouraged me on my power walking up the hill. Nice, but I had thought I was running.

Now that I am home, the level of soreness and fatigue is calling into grave question my plan to run (or walk) the Billygoat in 2 weeks. If I can't find someone to ride with, it may just all be too much.

Brown Long Map.

Long - Brown - Splits