Race Evaluation
O' in the Oaks: Red: Day 2
Nadim
| 1. | +01:15 | 0-1 Last race as a 39 year-old. Kean starts 4 minutes ahead of me. Peggy had an exciting finish this morning and in doing so, has set a target time for me. I close my eyes to calm before the start. Going on the intermittant trail to the road, I read the contours well and leave the road where I plan. The problem was that I misread the location of the control to being on the wrong spur. After inspecting a few obvious rocks and coming-up empty-handed, I realize my error and rush down southward across the reentrant, up the other side and straight to the control. | |||||
| 2. | +04:30 | 1-2 I crossed the reentrant on bearing, then tried to contour around. I didn't realize that there was more climb involved and ended-up in the green area--the impenetratble Manzanea. After faild attempts to go lower and relocate, I climb and see rocks and more field. I checkout someone else's control. At this point I realize the Manzenea was the green area and find it w/out too much more trouble. | |||||
| 3. | +01:00 | 2-3 Fearing costly errors and climbs I'm hesitant through the field. I make a good S-curve and see the rocks. Knowing the control could be on the other side, I go past them w/o inspecting them to make sure they are the right ones first. As the hillside contours and features becomes more obvious, I backtrack to the rocks and punch. | |||||
| 4. | 3-4 A little peeved at myself for the wasted time on #3, I ran a good bearing to the road intersection, using a cow trail part of the way. I just wanted to keep my feet moving. Going down the road, I passed the first bend, then rough compassed down the spur and spiked the control. | ||||||
| 5. | +01:30 | 4-5 Yesterday's lesson was to avoid climbing. Threfore, today I opted to go around the knoll, contouring. I passed some West Pointer's going the other way on Blue(?) lead by the guy I met at the Hudson Highlander. At the fence, I'm surprised and take a while to locate it on the map. I then dropped down too much and hit the road. Seeing what looks to be the right reentrant ahead, I climbed on bearing and hit it okay. | |||||
| 6. | +00:30 | 5-6 This looks a little tricky to me so I planned a careful route and executed it well for me. In the beginning, I headed a little north of the straight-line route. I wanted to hit the intersection but ended-up below it. Climbing back up, I turned right and soon left the road to pass between the two green areas, down into a reentrant. At the bottom, I turned left. A cowpath made the way easy. I curved around through the field and headed toward the rocks. As I was passing the second set, I saw someone else ahead probably punching. | |||||
| 7. | +00:45 | 6-7 The reentrant looked green even though it showed yellow on the map. I also was still very interested in avoiding climbs after the previous days experience. Going up a little and around to the left, I found myself within sight of the road. Thinking the road would give me a more identifiable attack point, I went all the way to it, ran on it for 40 yards, then cut down to the right. The light green shrubs forced me too low and I ended up having to climb again to punch. | |||||
| 8. | 7-8 I headed on bearring to the road and then saw others ahead probably just leaving. This seemed an easy control even for me! | ||||||
| 9. | 8-9 After looking at this leg on the map, I paused to consider going around, running fast on the road. I could see others climbing and topping the hill however and the direct way was so much shorter that I decided to give chase. I felt very slow on the climb. After peaking, I saw the nearest guy ahead was most of the way across and 2 others were ahead of him. I ran down quick but not so much that I couldn't read on the run. Luckily, the rough dried mud didn't trip me-up much. One guy was pulling right. I stayed straight heading toward Kean and another. By the time they crossed the road and were climbing the ridge, I had caught them and passed them both. Turning right after cresting, I spiked it--ahead of all three. | ||||||
| 10. | +01:15 | 9-10 I was a little nervous with the others right behind me so I left the control almost immediately. I knew there were two roads but didn't slow to read the map carefully enough. I turned right at the first which was not my intention. As the road bent right, I realized I had made an error but had to come to a full stop to figure it out. I could see the others going on the ridge and headed down into the reentrant. I cut down the field and caught them. Kean and I started looking low. Just as I realized we were low, Kean said it out loud and we headed up toward the other two, finding it quickly above and to our left. | |||||
| 11. | 10-11 Seeing the climb as a chance to drop the others, I gave chase. Some began walking up to the road and I caught them by slogging up trying to run. Because the way was more ramped, I used the intermittant trail to reach the road, then turned right, running all the way over the top. I almost caught a West Point runner on the road on the other side but he turned off to the left earlier than I. Heading Peter's advice, I stayed on the road almost to the intersection. Even so, I somehow managed to twist my ankle and had to hop about a bit. Cutting off the corner and turning left, I could see the West Point runner crossing the valley before the spur. I ran down the spur and felt it was a longer way than it should have been before turning right. My turn was just about right however, as it took me to the control ahead of the West Point runner who had passed it. | ||||||
| 12. | +03:00 | 11-12 Contouring around the first hill, I paused upon reaching the fence. It hadn't registered when I planned my route and so surprised me causing me to stop longer than I should have. The reentrant ahead looked deep so I sought to go right and contour around. Using too much memory and not reading well enough, I crossed the first fork, thinking it to be the deeper reentrant. When I saw a control ahead, I ran to it and didn't even realize it was #4 from earlier in the course. I thought I was on the right hill so I decided to go higher and check other dead trees--again an error since the feature was a rock. After climbing 3 contours, and finding a dead tree but no control, I turned back to verify that the code I saw earlier was right. This time I recognized it to be #4 and thus relocated. Going on bearing, I saw the West Point runner from #11 converging and thus spiked it coming from #4. | |||||
| 13. | +00:45 | 12-13 Safe routes are better for me. To the pond on the intermittant trail, I caught some people, crossed the dam and turned left aiming for the gap to avoid climb. One other person was already going this way. This route was unnecessary since the difference going more directly was only 1 contour. The others I passed just earlier followed. I lead at the gap and turned right as planned. Looking back the person following did not. Rough compassing to the rocks, mostly reading contour, I found the control, passing another(?) West Point runner. Time Lost for route choice: 0:45 | |||||
| 14. | +00:05 | 13-14 Rough compassing, basically straight, I crossed the road and slogged up the reentrant to the control. I was surprised that I didn't see it from the bottom and paused to verify/catch my breath on the climb. The climb seemed much harder than the contours seemed to indicate. | |||||
| 15. | +03:45 | 14-15 Contouring to the road, I turned left on it, going around the small knolls. I kept moving and reading while choosing trails. Coming from the east, I stayed on the road much too long--knowing it. This was partly because I was feeling tired and wanted to run on the easier surface of the road. After finally turning off, I set a bearing and realized something was wrong. Reading more carefully now, I noticed the multiple reentrants and started crossing them. I turned right as it flattened. Upon seeing a control on a hill I rushed-up to it only to find that it was wrong. Not wanting to waste more time so near the end I decided to bail-out to the road again but to do so by going east. Fortune was with me as I ran across the control. | |||||
| 16. | 15-16 I chose the safe route by going around on the road and trails. I was sure by this point that I wouldn't finish faster than Peggy's time, thinking that she finished in 83 minutes. Unconfident from my flub on #15, I paused a lot to make sure I was on the correct trail at nearly every intersection. Having seen Peggy's run-in I had earlier guessed where the control was at but seeing it from the other side I still had to pause at the large pond. | ||||||
| F. | 16-F I set off at a good pace but picked-it up when Peggy said I could still beat her time. I thought she was wrong but gave it all after she yelled anyway. She was taking pictures that I also imagined I would look horrible in. I ended-up beating her time (even though it was not a good run for her) and for the first time, did so in two consecutive races. |
Total Time Lost - 00:18:20