Race Evaluation
Valley Forge Battle to the End O' Marathon: Marathon
jjcote
| 1. | At 7 AM it wasn't exactly dark, but it was still dim enough that reading the map wasn't too easy until a few controls had gone by, so finding the start triangle was extra challenging. Chris Hand got out in front right away as we headed out the parking lot, and he turned off the road before Clint and I did. But when we got to the circle, he was standing still trying to read his map while we just went to the flag and punched. | ||||||
| 2. | Chris got out to the road before we did and opened up a gap, but he was again standing at the intersection when we arrived and went to the flag. | ||||||
| 3. | This time the control was simple enough that Chris got there ahead of us. Saw the first of countless deer. | ||||||
| 4. | Took the small trail as Chris disappeared up ahead, and cut off later than PG did, going to the left of the stuff. Crossed the road as soon as we got to it, and had a longer run on the southern road. Came down from the parking lot as Chris was coming along the lower trail, and punched all together. | ||||||
| 5. | Chris had to contemplate where he was going next, while Clint and I headed immediately off to #5, but Chris passed us in a bit. Saw Charlie and Rhonda up on the hill. Went up a couple of lines to the sharp bend in the road, then contoured down from the parking lot to pick up the trail through the rough open. Clint got excited about seeing a pair of ears in the tall grass that he thought was a fox, but it turned out to be a domestic dog. Chris was running the trail along the green and was about even with us when we hit the last road crossing, but he did something odd at the bridge that cost him a little time. Didn't notice the control on the Mt. Misery map, but we were able to navigate by the clearings on the Chesterbrook photo and found the control no problem. Chris came in right behind us. | ||||||
| 6. | Chris apparently hesitated at the underpass to study the map, and we never saw him again. | ||||||
| 7. | Very cool pedestrian culverts! We went to the east of the out-of-bounds area. | ||||||
| 8. | The first drinking fountain that I tried didn't seem to be working, but the second one was. | ||||||
| 9. | In an attempt to try and save some trivial bit of distance, we decided to cut across from the bike path to the road. Couldn't see from the photo where the stream went, and it turned out to be in our way. We found a log, but I didn't notice that it was icy, and I fell in, about knee-deep. Not so cold that it caused a problem, and fortunately I was wearing socks that stuck to my feet pretty tightly and didn't bunch up or anything. If the stream hadn't been there, this probably wouldn't have saved any time, and the way it was, I'm sure we lost time on this boondoggle. | ||||||
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| 11. | We were told when we arrived that Barb and Valerie were a few minutes ahead, which meant they were making pretty good time, since Clint had predicted that we would have caught them earlier than this. Had a piece of chocolate that was frozen solid. | ||||||
| 12. | This control and the next one provided some nice ski-O style navigation. | ||||||
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| 14. | Spotted Barb and Valerie up ahead, and we tried to be vewy vewy quiet as we gained on them. | ||||||
| 15. | Turned out Barb and Valerie had started about ten minutes later than planned, so they were doing even better than we thought (and much better than Barb had expected). | ||||||
| 16. | I noted that the 9 AM mass start went off just after we punched. | ||||||
| 17. | Barb and Valerie were still pretty close behind at the control, but that was the last we saw of them. We were now out in front, and stayed there for the rest of the day. Barely. | ||||||
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| 21. | Lost the faint trail near the end, but the control was easy to spot from a long way off. | ||||||
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| 23. | Clint started to take a step up the trail before I pointed out the river route. We momentarily considered taking the road on the other side, but didn't know if we'd be able to get back across on the dam (just as well we didn't try). | ||||||
| 24. | We actually consulted the control descriptions on this one. | ||||||
| 25. | So far so good. Hips hurting a bit. | ||||||
| 26. | I went to the car to grab a couple of Excedrin (I had planned to bring them with me, but forgot) while Clint stopped at the bathroom. Angelica was briefly astounded that we were already halfway done before remembering that we had had a two hour head start. | ||||||
| 27. | Dropped down off the railroad just at the right spot. | ||||||
| 28. | Decided to stay low on the trail, since it didn't seem too bad. Clint was looking at the satellite photo, I was using the Fatlands map. | ||||||
| 29. | When we got to the fence, we went up to the railroad bed, then back down at the bridge. | ||||||
| 30. | I had my eye open for the stream across the river at #26, but the control was very obvious. | ||||||
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| 32. | Up onto the berm, and spotted the control from up there. | ||||||
| 33. | This was probably my favorite leg, as it was one of the few that provided an opportunity for a bit of navigation. The woods were very clean, so we went at this one off-trail, quite straight, and picked up the trail about halfway along. | ||||||
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| 37. | There were well over 1000 geese in the field, and we just headed straight across it, flushing large groups of them twice as we approached. They were reportedly still in two flocks with a path between them when some other people came through a while later. | ||||||
| 38. | "9% GRADE HEAD"?? | ||||||
| 39. | Stayed on the trail in the woods as long as possible. | ||||||
| 40. | Cut through one extra bit of green to avoid a switchback, which worked out pretty well. | ||||||
| 41. | Getting under the highway was probably the worst footing of the day. Wondered if we'd see any of the 9AM people coming across from #34, but we didn't. | ||||||
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| 43. | Took the small map correction trail. A pair of mountain bikers asked what we were up to, and when we told them, they asked who our sponsor was. | ||||||
| 44. | Had I realized sooner how short this leg was, I would have gone fast to try and do it in under a minute. | ||||||
| 45. | Went through the culvert. Don't know if it was faster, but it saved us a little bit of climb, I think, and it was fun. Dark in there, though! Off to the right just a bit when we got to the circle. | ||||||
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| 47. | Took the lower trail, but at the parking lot we went back north to go under the first road and catch the ramp up to the pedestrian bridge. On the other side, Clint almost made a turn onto the wrong trail (not that it would have made that big a difference). | ||||||
| 48. | There was a train! We wondered whether anyone was far enough back to be affected by it near #26. | ||||||
| 49. | On the faint trail through the woods, which eventually turned into a bunch of deadfall. | ||||||
| F. | Clint and I had discussed whether to sprint at the end. I had asked whether he meant just looking good for the cameras, or actually trying to see who could go fastest. He was up for the latter, but we agreed to wait until we had the finish line in sight, and then agree on when to start. When we hit the parking lot, we said 1-2-3-Go, and sped up. I sped up a lot right away, and I think he realized that he couldn't go quite that fast and backed off. Given the head start, we were the first ones done with the full marathon. |
Total Time Lost - 00:00:00