Race Evaluation
Possum Trot VII: Possum Trot
Charlie
| 1. | Back in the pack, along the road to the open area and up the hill. Short wait to punch. | ||||||
| 2. | +01:00 | Basically following, Phil and Orlyn in sight but pulling away, around to the left. Big crowd at the control. About a full minute wait to punch, which spread out the pack. | |||||
| 3. | The people ahead were following the ridge line, so I angled down to the trail to the E to get out of a crowd. A bobcat barreled past me going south! All the way around and approached from the N, saw some of the leaders on the trail, and Orlyn about a minute ahead leaving the control and headed to 4. | ||||||
| 4. | Mostly alone. On the trail to the bend, then angled across the top of the green hilltop (not so green, really). Saw Orlyn and Phil at the control. Phil realized he had dropped his map and went back. | ||||||
| 5. | My contact lens came out as I left #4, and I spent the next several minutes trying to jolly it back into position as I ran. Ended up left of the marshy areas on top of the huge earthbanks. Very slow going, steeper than the map looked, and with a fence leaving only a small corridor. Ran into Gene Wee and another guy at the control. | ||||||
| 6. | Leaving 5 pulled out my glasses and put them on. Great to see the map again! Trading off with Gene, I got to the upper dot knoll, and he got ahead of me. | ||||||
| 7. | Behind Gene, along the edge of the pond until it was time to climb. | ||||||
| 8. | Behind Gene again, and running downhill pretty fast when I got flipped by hitting an unmapped shin-high barbed wire fence. Shredded my pants and my lower legs, and got some vicious cramps in my left calf and left upper back. Fell back a bit. A little shaky crossing the stream, but spiked it. | ||||||
| 9. | Caught up to Gene and the other guy at the water stop. Through the cliffs and around to the left and in. | ||||||
| 10. | Through the yellow, and stayed low until I could see the flag up above and climbed to it. | ||||||
| 11. | Skip | ||||||
| 12. | Skip. I guess this was a pretty good skip - saved over 1500 m. Still, I wished I had saved a skip for #23. Interestingly, nobody skipped it, although 22-24 would have been a nice easy leg. | ||||||
| 13. | +02:00 | Planned to take the spur NE to the road, but got on the wrong spur and headed S for a bit, before I turned and climbed across the big reentrant. Along the road to the clearing with the three rides coming out of it. Along the ride and over the fence. Saw some rec runners at a control on the fence. Slight bobble as I wandered a bit too high. A guy in blue came in (JP Ingebritsen?), apparently from 12, running quite a bit faster. | |||||
| 14. | The guy in blue ran away from me, but got off to the left. I went straight and spiked it and beat him in | ||||||
| 15. | +01:00 | Down to the trail and to the trail junction, Then SW on the trail for a bit past the green and then up and straight from there. The guy in blue took the much better route along the road and got there just ahead of me. | |||||
| 16. | +01:00 | Climbed up to the trail along the top of the bluff (that took a while), then along the trail counting reentrants on the left. Saw some guys coming back from the other direction. Bobbled a bit as I started down the wrong spur. Just behind Orlyn and some others at the control, but far enough back that they were quickly out of sight. | |||||
| 17. | Angled back up to the trail, then followed it to where I could go up the spur to the clearing, and follow the trail to the third clearing, down the spur to the deep gully. Saw Orlyn heading out of it as I went in. | ||||||
| 18. | Along the trails to the reentrant, again saw Orlyn leaving as I headed in | ||||||
| 19. | +01:30 | A little wobbly. Thought I was at 17 for some reason, and started back W on the trail before I decided that was ridiculous, then across the big reentrants heading for the fence junction SW of the control. The control was further down than I was expecting it. Better route would have been to head straight north to the top of the cliffs, then come in from low. | |||||
| 20. | Crossed the fence and headed NW to the trail, then along the road to just before the last bend. Saw Rob Wagnon at the control. He was real tired. | ||||||
| 21. | Didn’t like crossing the gullies, so stayed a little higher to the right through some thicker stuff, pretty close to the line, crossing the stream and picking up the road just before the small V-shaped bend. Right after the bend headed up looking for the trail, but ended up just contouring in. | ||||||
| 22. | +00:45 | A little N of E, across the first road crossing, and picked the road up near the barn. Jumped off the road a little early, and then went too low, and had to figure it out. Cost maybe 45 seconds. | |||||
| 23. | Back on the road to the trail to the gatehouse. Saw Gene again at the clearing right before the control. He was cramping and tired. | ||||||
| 24. | This was awful! The gullies were pretty deep, so I drifted up into thick fight. Scratched my nose and was dripping blood on the map. Eventually hit the ride. | ||||||
| 25. | Easy - W to the trail and walked up the hill on the road in the campground. | ||||||
| 26. | Picked up the trail, but miscounted the bends and got all the way to the trail junction before cutting back. | ||||||
| 27. | Down the stream to save a little climb, then walked up. | ||||||
| F. |
Total Time Lost - 00:07:15