Rocky Mt. Goat, 10.7km straight line. There's lots of ways to look at the race. The goal was no big mistakes and I should have walked away from the win, no problem. And I totally did that expect for a few minutes of a poor plan of attack and a poor relocation strategy. This cost me time, but despite that, I still took the win (my 4th Rocky Mt. Goat win?). So in terms of outcome goals it was still a great day. But the mistake takes a bit away for the pride in the win. But another way to look at it is that the mistake was there, and apart from a few issues, I ran really well, and all that quality allowed me to be competitive despite the mistake. And this made the race very thrilling for three of us in the last two minutes. Diamond Bay, by far is the toughest map in the Laramie Range, and maybe the toughest map I've ever run. I used to think that Pelican Bay was the toughest, but Diamond Bay is a good step above that. And Swampfox put together an excellent course in all respects. Given all that, what I'm also happy about, is that I have been getting better and better at identifying challenging rock features largely on the fly, even when unsure where I am exactly. This is something I certainly was often marginal at in the past, but today I was at least decent. Because of this, I got off track a number of times and easily picked up where I was. Looking at my track, going to 14, I got off course heading too N initially, then I got stuck floundering in a sea of aspen, with no visible way out (despite the track suggesting I almost made it out in a pretty good place, it certainly wasn't like that on the ground), by the time I got out, I couldn't be sure where I was, climbing a hill wasn't much help, and I got really concerned that may be I was next to the wrong big rocky hill (or maybe I was off the map). So I thought that the safest thing to do was to just put the hammer down, go NW where I was sure to hit the road and take my losses (estimated as a 10:40 mistake). Because I was running harder, there were a few more minor mistakes, and apart from seeing Troy too far north of 14 just as I saw it, I didn't see anyone. So I thought it was possible I was still in the lead, or I lost so much that it was pointless. But all became clear as I was avoiding dead fall coming around a C-shaped hill heading to 19, I could see Jon (known to be likely the in the lead at the point) and Ian. I looked at the map, was there enough left to close the gap? It was crazy that I saw no sign of Jon or Ian up to that point. I put the hammer down, closing a 40 meter gap nearly by 19, then went all out to the finish to retake the lead just when it matter. Then I got to enjoy an ice cold Dew, the official beverage of the Rocky Mt. Goat. Fortunately others were happy to take the other 11 Dew's off my hands so I was only tempted to drink one.
Quickroute:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/98725947@N05/3622389...
Results:
https://sites.google.com/site/laramierangeorientee...