Race Evaluation
CSU Cat Rock Park: Sprint
jfredrickson
| 1. | I took the route to the left of the baseball field, to the bottom of the ski slope. I didn't even see the short trail route to the right, but from what I heard about that trail, it was pretty nasty, so I really don't know if I lost that much time with this route. | ||||||
| 2. | Just a straight compass shot. | ||||||
| 3. | Out to the field, and careful reading of the vegetation on the map led me right into the correct bush. | ||||||
| 4. | Straight along the trail, and again careful reading of the veg detail was important to spike this one. Starting to feel really confident. | ||||||
| 5. | Took the route around the bush to the right, then up to the cliff from the boulder at the edge of the field. | ||||||
| 6. | Around the swamp and little hill to the right, then contour along to the end. Didn't see the control but I was confident it could only be farther along, so I kept pushing until I came to it. It felt a little far, but my route left me with no choice to continue until I found it, so it wasn't a problem. | ||||||
| 7. | In between the two hills, then down to the right side of the cliff and in. | ||||||
| 8. | Straight out to the trail and attack off the trail-stone wall junction. | ||||||
| 9. | Out to the field, and checked my compass to make sure I was headed in the right direction. Saw another control that looked like my number 3 at first, confusing me a bit since it came up so soon in the field, but I quickly realized it wasn't 3 and figured out which bush it was. From there it was just a straight shot into the correct bush, then around and into the control. | ||||||
| 10. | Just straight down the trail, around the waterfall on the bridge, then up and into the control from the trail bend. | ||||||
| 11. | +00:30 | This is where it all fell apart. I was telling myself on the trail to 10 to be careful since I could feel myself going into the red zone because of the lack of intense navigation on the last couple controls. I came out of 10 thinking I needed to cross the trail and head back to the stream to pick up the main trail. As I neared the stream, I realized the main trail that I wanted was the one I had just crossed, so I quickly went back out after losing about 10 seconds. Then I took the first trail to the right, but didn't read it that closely, and expected it to lead me right into the control area. When it hit the rock wall I got really confused, but stopped and figured out what was going on, and had no problem attacking the control from there. It was a pretty awful leg, and I was just at too high of an intensity leading into it, and hadn't planned it out with the same focus that I had on the earlier controls. And of course once I was out of it, the race was too short and fast to really get my focus back, so the rest of the course was pretty bad too. | |||||
| 12. | +00:05 | Fortunately 12 was just a short shot, and I wasn't able to miss it by enough to not see it. I read the stone wall as a trail though, so when I got to it I was a bit confused, but a quick closer check of the map helped me to realize what was going on, and I didn't lose more than 5 seconds. | |||||
| 13. | Fortunately 13 was just an easy trail run, and the trail segments were long enough to allow me time to figure out what I was doing before I had to do it, even though I didn't have my best focus. | ||||||
| 14. | +01:00 | 14 was a disaster, and it was just a result of my lack of focus and the lack of confidence that comes with it. It looked like such an easy leg that I didn't pay too much attention along the trail. Then when I came out into the clearing and saw the houses, I suddenly thought that I had reached the farther clearing, and turned around to check out the clearing behind me. Once back there I realized that it was too overgrown and had to be the first small one, and that I had been right all along. I ran back down the trail and found the control about 5 meters past where I had turned around. | |||||
| 15. | +00:30 | My mistake on 14 threw me off completely and I couldn't remember what I had planned for 15. As a result I just sort of winged it and ended up with just about the worst zig-zagging route possible. I tooke the first trail left, then the second trail right, thinking it was the first since I didn't really see the first. Anyway, they both ended up in the same place, but the stone wall along my trail confused me, and when I finally hit the main trail junction it took me a second to figure out where I was. I then ran down the trail a little ways and then cut into the woods past 11. I wasn't reading the map that carefully, and ended up hitting the trail/stone wall junction. Again, I was confused since I wasn't reading the map that carefully and hadn't been expecting the trail. When I figured it out though, it was just a straight shot in. | |||||
| F. | I didn't even have my last route figured out because the last controls had been so hectic. I just started running down the trail in the direction of the line, then realized I could cut the corner a bit later than was necessary to really save any time, and then from there it was just trail run in. |
Total Time Lost - 00:02:05