US Champs, Middle, Stanley flats
Beautiful scenery, but a long walk to the start. My goal today was clean navigation. I decided to walk the whole race since it was nearly impossible to run through all the deadfall, and I would just have more mistakes if I did try too hard. I was pretty good at keeping to this plan. It helped when I figured out that the logs didn't break when you stepped on them, so you could hop from one to the other.
On my way to 6, I pulled my calf muscle again. Wow, it hurt. I briefly considered stopping the race, but I was already at the furthest point. And as I continued, the pain went away. But my mind was distracted for a bit. I went too far down the hill on the way to 7, but I figured it out quickly. Joined a few other folks wandering around nearby , but decided quickly that I needed to relocate at the pond.
After that, the course went well until the penultimate control. I got cocky that it had been going well, and I caught a guy who had been ahead of my at 7. Thought I had to go left to get to the control and I spent too long wandering before I admitted that I had to go back.
As I finished, I thought that it had gone OK, and that I was glad I had recovered reasonably soon after my mistakes. I was a bit mad at myself for the mistake at 12, but overall, I was happy with my run. Not great, but much better than I had done all year.
I spoke to Mike and he looked at my time and said he thought I might have beaten Peggy. I said, No way. I have only beaten Peggy once in 25 years. But when I compared times with her, it was true. I had beaten her by 39 seconds! Woo hoo, I must admit, this made me very happy!
Then, as others in our class finished, it became clear that I was going to win F50! This was a very good feeling. I know it wasn't the best run, and that others had worse days, but a win is a win.
http://sprintseries.org/doma/show_map.php?user=map...
Mike and I left early and had a leisurely drive down to Boise, stopping at some hot springs along the way. We had a very delicious meal in town (at Fork) and I celebrated with a glass of Champagne.