O race 2:04:00 [4] *** 9.4 km (13:11 / km)
spiked:18/22c shoes: Montrail Hardrock
Greenbelt Park, Blue. upper 20's, breezy, partly cloudy. The woods were dry, but being Greenbelt, full of deadfall trees, greenbriar, and lots of other vines, branches and detritus to trip, grab, poke and tear at me.
My main problem was in the "short game" - i.e. there were 3 controls where I just wandered for a good 10 minutes (each) searching for a control. In each case, I wandered around the spot where the control was in a complete circle.
Comments: (I count a 'spike' if I go to the control as intended; although often not by a very good route)
1. spike
2. spike, but route was wide right along the stream
3. spike, but route was terrible through worst of green. There is a open sort of ?field? (tall yellow grass, lots of deer sign, downed trees greenbriar) next to a gulley and into the woods not far across the road. I would have expected this to be mapped a bit differently from typical green like open/rough but it wasn't.
4. spike
5. spike
6. spike
7. missed. Came across stream too far right and went to wrong control which was in a gulley close to the trail had to backtrack from the trail to the correct control
8. spike
9. spike - turned my left ankle painfully (again). Limped for a while and stopped to readjust shoelaces/gaiters which were really giving me trouble falling down and turning around.
10. spike - came in a bit left
11. missed. Couldn't find the control, distracted by other runners, failed to read control clues. Relocating off manmade feature didn't help.
12. spike
13. spike, but a bit hesitant when pace count went way over the expected number
14. spike. Passed a tepee made out of a tarp. Mis-measured distance as 300 m when it was 400 - even so, pace counting went way over expected amount
15. spike
16. missed. went right to the correct gulley but it looked longer than it should to me and I assumed it was the one after it that went up to the road. Since that one would have been too far I wasted time backtracking and wandering. Not very clear thinking. Distracted by other runners in area.
17. spike
18. missed. Went up hill from camp area but too far left - kept hitting trail. Keyed off deep gulley and missed control again and hit trail. Finally followed trail carefully down to spur and found it.
19 -20 spike.
Some notes for future:
- dont wear ankle socks, the gaiters just flop over or above them and my ankles get torn
- wear thickers socks to hold the gaiters up
- carry eyewash to meets. my eyes kept tearing and I could not see the map.
- pace counting, which is one of my favorite techniques, can really fail on crappy ground