Race Evaluation
Hudson Highlander 7:
levitin
| 1. | Followed the crowd. Had no idea where we were or what route we used. Hard to believe there was only one (1) punch at the control. | ||||||
| 2. | Followed the crowd. Saw Charlie DeWeese and decide to stick with him for as long as I could keep up. I didn't expect it to last long. Also in this crowd were Jim Henderson, Scott Turner, Terry Keegan, and some others I don't know. | ||||||
| 3. | Followed Charlie. | ||||||
| 4. | En route to 4 we saw Jeff Saeger coming toward us. I was puzzled and thought perhaps Jeff found some faster way to 5. | ||||||
| 5. | The group began to drop me on the fast downhill toward the road. I didn't even see the trail until after the event, and I definitely had no spare cycles to look at the map. I was concentrating on watching my footing as I ran faster downhill than I was comfortable doing, while trying to figure out which way Charlie and crowd had gone. We reached the road before I got lost, and I gained some ground on the long road run. I used this time to start getting into the map. On the road I passed Charlie and Terry, but expected Scott and Charlie to pass me back. How could I follow someone if I were in front of them? We took the trail near the lake in and turned up west of the marsh. I needn't have worried because Scott and Charlie had both passed me on the trail after the road part ended. I was shocked to see Peggy and Bernard Breton only about 2+ minutes ahead of me. I expected they would have been far ahead of me by then. | ||||||
| 6. | The descent near the spillway is a bit gnarly. We should have aimed off on the SW side and followed the streamers into the control, but we came down too far NE and got confused for a bit. I went uphill and punched after someone I concluded later was Suzanne Armstrong, and before the rest in the group (Charlie, Scott, and Terry). Out to the road and to the MapX. | ||||||
| 7. | Leg time = 6:30 to the MapX + 27:36 to the control, which included some time to redo my shoe to try to free a pebble (which I determined was inside the *sock*, and cleared at the 2nd mapX). :-( All the members of my group went onto Pole Brook next, so that was the last I saw of them. I set off down the road and noticed Sharon Crawford, who had said not to run with her since she'd slow me down (Hah; she beat me by an hour.) and also Jeff Saeger. Up the rocky reentrant, though I bet it was faster to take the trail at the SW corner of L. Askoti. Under the power line, N of the swamp and in. | ||||||
| 8. | Got slowed way down by the green. Ick. It looks like there might be short runnable patches between the growths, but I didn't find any. | ||||||
| 9. | Went SE through the green to the trail; I prob. should have gone SW through the white to the trail and gone the other way. Jumped off the trail near the bend, but had been confused by 2 separate areas of grave markers. Somewhere in here I saw Ralf Becker. | ||||||
| 10. | Back N to the trail, using someone I determined was Eric Bone, and Boris to help me with a route choice. They quickly disappeared on the trail. Right around where I had decided to jump off the trail (at the bend), I saw them running north, and followed the direction they came from. I told Boris he was 30 seconds behind. I quickly got out of contact, and wandered around southward praying that I would hit some unique feature I could relocate on. I was just about to panic when I turned and found the control, punched, and saw Sharon Crawford run in. We ran together from 10 almost to 14, then I choked. | ||||||
| 11. | I ran with Sharon to 11 and told her of my recent half ironman results. Ralf Becker was within sight at some point near 11. | ||||||
| 12. | I lost contact with the map en route to 12, thinking we were farther along than we were on the ridge line, but Sharon, naturally, is in excellent contact. We've lost Ralf. | ||||||
| 13. | I got a bit ahead of Sharon on the road to 13, but she contoured in more effectively and made up about a 50m gap by moving quickly through the forest. She punched first at 13. | ||||||
| 14. | En route to 14, I got confused and thought the steep hill 50m E of the circle was inside the circle. I went around it counterclockwise, expecting to see Sharon punching. When I finally got about 270° around the wrong hill, I realized my error, and made it to the flag, but Sharon had gotten way ahead. At this point (3 hours), I was pretty tired and needed salt tablets. I had left them in my bag in my haste. | ||||||
| 15. | 4:20 to the MapX, 16:24 to the flag, which includes the detour to the car for salt and getting the &*(^(ing pebble out of my sock. Saw Sharon leaving the MapX while coming in, told her of my stupid error, and to have fun and not think twice about waiting for me. I'm starting to slow. Saw JJ on the trail coming from Pole Brook en route to the road crossing. As I crossed the street, I decide I have to walk for a bit. I get some wicked cramps in my legs as I pick my way up the reentrant. Ralf Becker passed somewhere here, never to be seen again. | ||||||
| 16. | I walked this leg and most of the map. I was surprised how fully I could tick off the features while moving so slowly. | ||||||
| 17. | Don't remember the route, but it was walking. | ||||||
| 18. | Trail to the wall, and attacked from the wall corner, but was still a bit low, and thought I saw > 3 boulders in a line there, so was a bit confused temporarily. | ||||||
| 19. | Straight. At least, that was the plan, but I must have erred a bit S of straight, because I relocated a bit above two guys who were in the wrong reentrant 100m E of the flag. | ||||||
| 20. | We made our way in sight of each other to 20, staying level. | ||||||
| 21. | They left me en route to 21. One, Nate (I guess Nathan Smith), was on his 3rd map; the other guy was on his 2nd. Straight, and walking. | ||||||
| 22. | Somewhere along here I caught sight of Susie DeWitt and Steve Worthington. I think the 5 of us who eventually finished 44-48 were in a clump around here. | ||||||
| 23. | |||||||
| 24. | I got ahead of Susie and Steve and ran up the knoll and down; I think some of them overran the knoll a bit or approached it from the N side. Judy said that Sharon was about 30min ahead of me at the road crossing, dashing any hopes of seeing her again in the woods. I tried to push a bit on the trail, but my tank was close to empty. | ||||||
| 25. | 8:37 to the MapX, 9:37 to the flag. Susie and Steve left the mapX ahead of me, but I followed them along the low trail. | ||||||
| 26. | S + S have disappeared in front of me. | ||||||
| 27. | Clearing to the road to trail under the power line to the road N of the control. I came in past the earth bank along the wall from the NW. | ||||||
| 28. | Back to the road, to the trail, but there was an awful lot of green yuck here. I got caught up a bit in it, and punched along (yet heard voices nearby). | ||||||
| 29. | While struggling through what I hoped was the narrow strip of white in the green, Susan Worthington and David Hoffman, back at #28, noticed my struggle and asked how the going was. My response was not printable. By the time I crossed under the power line, they were already at least 50m ahead of me in the clearing. I pushed to catch up with them on the trail up to 29. David went over the top and punched first while I contoured around. | ||||||
| 30. | They led a bit on the way to 30, but slowed down at what I thought at the time was a nearby reentrant. The terrain matched my expectation, and I popped into the right reentrant and punched first. Perhaps I made the same error as the one who hung the control? | ||||||
| 31. | Road to power line down the steep reentrant, and up along the cliff line. Susan and David got ahead and climbed early; I stayed low and climbed late. They punched first. As we left the control, a group with Paul Regan came in toward the control from the E having gone around the swamp, a route I considered briefly. | ||||||
| 32. | I followed Susan and David along the stream bed, thankful that it was not raining this year. David was stung twice by bees that Susan had angered, but I didn't notice them. At 32, the 3 of us joined Susie DeWitt and Steve Worthington. We traveled as a group to the finish from 32. | ||||||
| 33. | Down to the swamp, but for some reason the group wanted to be on the E side. I counseled that the W looked more open, and as we got to where the green neared the swamp, we crossed back to the W side. Through the camp, across the paved road, down the trail, under the power line near the bend, up the reentrant. So far everything matches well. As we get closer to the flag it gets less obvious and we get a bit confused, or perhaps not unanimous about our position. Susie found the flag and punched first; I guess she had the clearer idea of where we were. | ||||||
| 34. | Trail to road and up. | ||||||
| F. | I wanted to finish as a group, but the finish line wasn't 5 people wide. 7:05. 2 official finishes in 3 attempts. Wow was this brutal. |
Total Time Lost - 00:00:00