1. | One pretty day, my route will be here. I started ahead of my scheduled time, with a bunch of strong people around my start: Mark Prior, 8 min ahead; Mook, 6; Spike, 4; John F, 2 min ahead of me. | ||||||
2. | |||||||
3. | Went pretty straight. Maybe it wasn't so great, but I also wasn't pushing the pace, trying to save the best for the flat portion of the course. | ||||||
4. |
Bad compass work +00:35 | Up the reentrant, then correct left... too far left. | |||||
5. | Again, pretty straight and without pushing it. I see Sergey whooped my butt by over a minute on both of the uphill legs. | ||||||
6. | Up the hill with a USMA guy. That's why this split didn't suck. | ||||||
7. | On my way up to Control 6, I couldn't see any good, inventive around-choice for this leg, so went straight after the initial 350 m on the trail. Caught Mark halfway into the leg, and he helped me keep the pace. Other than momentary confusion while crossing the "paved" road, I executed very well and identified all the major green blobs on the way, avoiding the worst. Shortly before Control 7, I found John who was converging into it as if after having taken a wide-left trail route, which I discarded early on. | ||||||
8. | John led me into this one. | ||||||
9. | As I followed John down the spur trail, the pace quickly became uncomfortable. And, as I was falling back, I took my last look at the leg and decided to go wide right, around on trails, and let John go straight. As I was approaching #9 on the trail, John was there, crashing through the woods. And at the control, there was Mook! | ||||||
10. | John and Mook moved so fast I could barely breathe. But, I did take a long hard look at #10–#11. | ||||||
11. | I went well to the right, through the band of white, same way as Peter G did on his Red course. And, as I crossed the creek, up there were Mook and John... three times in a row that my route choice kept me in contact with the train of faster-moving people. Normally I suck at RC, but not this time... years of terrain-relevant practice, I guess... | ||||||
12. | I think I saw Spike at #11 ir #12, but cannot remember exactly where. | ||||||
13. | As I left #12, Mook was not to be seen and John was about 150 m ahead. I went pretty straight, not using any trails, since I had seen the woods around the little pond on my way to #9 and they were not scary at all. I then negotiated the green N of the large pond pretty well. I should have stayed more to the left, though, to avoid more green. | ||||||
14. | Saw John's shirt way ahead upon leaving #13. But Dave Frei was also there, moving at about my pace. Dave didn't have my #14... | ||||||
15. |
Bad map reading +00:50 | ... or #15, but I kept running along him on his route. I misread the vegetation boundaries upon approach, and ended up just W of the control. Stopped, read the map, turned around, found it. At this point I thought John and Mook were gone for good. | |||||
16. | ... But, as I was coming into #16, again with Dave F by the side, I saw Mook leaving for #17, taking a wide-right, handrail-safe route. | ||||||
17. | Trying to catch Mook, I went straight. The mapped marsh sucked...literally. It also had some veg other than the close saplings, some briary stuff in it. As I fought that veg, I deviated from the line and hit the clearing wide right. Dasha was going from our #17 to #18. I don't count this as a mistake, though. | ||||||
18. | Dasha led me into #18. | ||||||
19. | I followed Andras Revesz along the fence out of #18, but it became clear he wasn't going my way. I crossed the forest quickly but got caught up on the fence that paralleled the paved road. As I untangled and rolled down upon the road, John was there. I ran the road towards the finish a hair tad too much among the excitement. As I followed John to the control, there was another guy in all black and a kerchief, moving really fast. I figured it was a Canadian but could not tell if he was Wil or Hammer. | ||||||
20. | John and Hammer hammered up the paved road, and I couldn't keep up at all. | ||||||
F. |
Total Time Lost - 00:01:25