Training Log Archive: bbrooke

Possum Trot @ Blue & Grey Park.

Since it was cold, I opted to wear an ear-warmer instead of my usual hat or visor -- and I spent the first three hours really regretting that (since I seem to have a hard time seeing when there's a lot of bright sun / dark shadow contrast in the woods). It was really hard for me to see -- especially combined with the massive amount of eye-watering I have lately every time I start an outdoor activity (cold + wind + sunscreen?). I swapped to my hat when I got to #15 at the start / finish area.

Otherwise, it took me a few controls to get used to how faint and hard to see many of the trails were (totally covered in leaves, etc.). And -- I did decide to use trails almost exclusively, since thorny things made me even slower in the woods.

So I had a few mistakes here and there -- mainly at #2 (some wandering, lost in the trail network), #4 (I left the field too soon at the wrong trail -- and there was an old camp chair right there which I told myself could be the man-made object), and #25 (lost the trail and took a really inefficient route). I chose #22 as my skipped control, and it looks like that's the one most others skipped, too -- so I guess I chose wisely...

I was expecting to cover about nine miles (based on the 14 km course length), but it was actually 13+ (earning the chocolate mousse crepes I had for dessert last night...). After the first few controls, I was worried about missing the five-hour cutoff or even finishing the whole course, but I made it and finished 2nd out of three women, 19th out of 26 starters -- not DFL! ;-) Sharon stomped me by ~50 minutes -- but I'm sure she didn't have any of the dumb navigational mistakes I had.

I'm surprised at the total elevation gain shown on my Garmin (even after correction), but other logs show similar numbers...

Very fun!!!

PT XVIII - Splits