Race Evaluation
Mid-Atlantic Championships: Red
Nadim
| 1. | I ran straight down the hill rather than search for the intermittant trail. I expected to be able to see it from across the reentrant but that wasn't the case until I reached bottom. I passed two women adenture racers and another guy who started before me. | ||||||
| 2. | I ran around the ridge both on and off trail. I believe I'd run a similar leg once before trying to go on the hillside once and had gotten caught-up in the rocks then. As I approached from the trail, Greg Lennon was coming down. | ||||||
| 3. | I decided that a climb at this time wasn't worth it. Also, I remember on a previous run and a similar leg that I went over the ridge once only to make an error coming down. Once around the ridge and going up the trail, I passed Greg Lennon who guessed it was me from the noises I was making--probably a lot of huffing up the slope. I saw it and then Greg cut in behind me about the same time. I had decided earlier to go around the curve before cutting in but went ahead anyway. Greg got caught-up in a tree downfall that I was already around so I was able to get in and out w/o seeing him. | ||||||
| 4. | I walked a little going up the hill but got running again before the top going up the reentrant. . I kept straight and went to the field corner to attack from. Others ahead of me were off to the right. I made for the corner of the contour and spiked the rootstock. | ||||||
| 5. | +04:00 | I started out dog-legging again (as in leg 2-3). Using the scatterd tree area, which was more wooded than I expected, I went around the reentrants eventually getting to the road. I passed many White course runners going up the hill to the shelter. Coming down I was not very careful. I started on a leftward bearing but let myself cut right a bit nearer the bottome. I thought I would sweep-up the control but as I reached bottom, I saw much more detail than the map showed. I wasn't sure if I was low or high. I looked at the ditches above but didn't see anything. I don't think I recognized the vegetation boundary on the map at this point either. As I wandered down, the slop on my right got steeper. I knew by this time that there was a vegetation boundary involved. Not seeing a clear on, I could see the woods getting thicker ahead so I let myself believe that this change could be what's mapped. Wet ditches I saw, including a confluence, still didn't make sense since they were not on the map. Eventually, I turned back, checking ditches as I climbed. Finally, I saw the pines and then the control. Joe Garmin was looking around at this time too. More than one person told me that the map was wrong in this area. I'm not positive. One said he could stand at the control and see that the shelter most had come down past, was not due south. I don't know if that person had the wrong shelter in view or if he was right. | |||||
| 6. | Leaving #6, I aimed for the gap. I'd been across the hillside before and knew of the animal trails. I never got high enough to use these. As I went, I felt foolish for not using the flatter land below and just sucking-up the short climb to the saddle from the bottom. I reached the saddle a bit high but above most of the stony ground. I think I passed Greg Lennon again while going down. I spiked the control. | ||||||
| 7. | I turned back going up the trail I'd just been on. I had intended to stay low but the map hadn't shown the downfall past where the trail goes up. Having walked around in this type of stuff in Blockhouse Conservation Park earlier, I didn't want to chance it by trying to go through. I climbed the saddle and continued up but not all the way. I ran the sidehill, crossed the reentrant and ran the sidehill again before spiking the control. It was a slow route but I don't know if low would have been faster or not. | ||||||
| 8. | I ran the hillside gradually climbing and finshing the climb on the reentrant to the saddle. I was intending to go up the trail more to attack from above but it seemed to make sense to stay lower and run the southern hillside to the control. It was fast and I spiked it with only one hesitation for not reading a small reentrant that was not easily visible on the map. | ||||||
| 9. | My initial thought was to go up the ridge and run the trail. It ocurred to me that Peggy almost beat me on a similar leg in this same area by going low to the right. Running the low trail was fast and I could read ahead well on the map. | ||||||
| 10. | +00:25 | My first thought again was to climb but I dog-legged it back on the lower trail. I stayed on this trail then climbed on the trail up the reentrant from the river bend. I stayed on that all the way to the paved road. I figured it'd be better since I probably would have had to walk the steeper and straighter route. Going past park HQ, I planned to come through the rough open but it looked too slow. I came off the road bend past the entrance gate but was confused about which trail was which. I saw Julie Keim ahead going to my left. This drew me off even though she was probably on another course. I verification of the contours showed me to go to the top of the ridge--duh! I didn't lose a lot but it was a silly error. | |||||
| 11. | I used the trail to the right and came off it just before the bend and the cliffs. I passed right by #2 before reaching the bottom. I used the rough open and ran fairly straight. When I got pushed left a bit by vegetation, I compensated and ended-up spiking the control. I wasn't confident I would even with it being at a large creek/river junction because I couldn't see the creek. | ||||||
| 12. | As I left #11, I tipped-off Clem who was headed to the same control. I ran on bearing rather than try to figure out the small trails. Once across the wet ditch, I used the larger trail and read the large rock on my left. I could hear Clem catching-up but didn't know that he was headed toward a different control. I saw Eddie Bergeron going the other way. Soon the rocks on the left were running out and I still couldn't see the boulder. A few more steps reavealy why--some deadfall was partly covering it up when approaching from the west. | ||||||
| F. | +00:02 | Straightish to the stream crossing then up the intermittant trail to the shelter. I walked the steep climb a little but pushed most of the way. I couldn't see the finish punch near the start table so I had to yell "Where is the Finish Punch?" Heidi and Dave responded. All this made a little difference since I finished ahead of Joe Campbell by 3 seconds. There were many others in the next two minutes behind us. Overall, I finished 3rd on the course, behind Vadim M., and Dan Quinn who were about 11 and 6 minutes ahead of me. Course setter Ted Good did a reasonable job with the courses given that he needed to change from the preferred use of the creek crossing (ruled out due to partly high but cold water). |
Total Time Lost - 00:04:27