Training Log Archive: iansmith

Event: Pawtuckaway Camping Weekend
 

Hanging sprint relay controls with Ed. At the end of the day, we had 12 teams sign up, which was fantastic! Ed did a magnificent job working results, hanging controls, setting everything up, and generally being clutch. The courses were 1.7 - 2 km, and in Pawtuckaway, the winning times by national team folks were typically 14-15 minutes. I think that on days with many events, like Camping Weekend, shorter legs (w.t. 10-12 minutes) are more appropriate. Still, everyone was finished less than 2 hours into the event, and 28 people participated. Thanks to all the participants for coming out!

After a very successful sprint relay, I ran off into the void to move my ten controls from their Saturday locations to Sunday. Alar, Lex and Pete were an excellent setting team, so I had a manageable chunk of controls - ten - to move. UNO brought 52 controls for the weekend, which unfortunately was not enough to set Saturday and Sunday simultaneously. I moved four controls within the same sector at the north part of the map, and six from the rockfield way over to Big Island. I started at around 4:50 PM, and finished just as darkness fell (without a light) at around 7:25. My perceived effort was a steady cruising speed.

I returned to the pavilion about 35 minutes before the WHNO was slated to start. Lex had very kindly saved me some food, so I wolfed down two cheeseburgers, drank about a liter of water, and prepped my night gear. I felt weary from my setting expedition, so I figured I would do some of the night-O at a relaxed pace, and then bail. I had seen one of the Night controls at the extreme north end of the map in daylight, and didn't really want to run that far.

However, once the race started, my competitive juices kicked in a bit. I wasn't able to push hard, but the time I have spent in Pawtuckaway lately left me feeling very comfortable running in the terrain. After some uncertainty on the approach to one, I found myself running near Ethan and Brendan. ("Hey, Ethan: is this the lead?") I was more confident at 2 than they, found it first, and took off toward 3 with about a 75m lead. Note than the split locations are off by about 1:40 in the GPS track because of bad satellites at the start.

I seemed to cross six marshes instead of the expected two getting to 3, but my direction wasn't as random as I had feared. Ben and Ethan took a better route to 3 (pfft), and Brendan and I punched 30s behind them. Brendan led me into 4, and we diverged when I took a lower route to 5. I reached 5 alone, though I could see a headlamp in the distance closing. I ran to 6 and 7 alone, though Ethan caught up to me perhaps 200m from 7 and punched 20s behind. He passed me on the way to 8, and we reached 9 together. I took a slightly faster route to the trail to 10, but I couldn't keep up with him when we met up on the trail. I crossed at the beaver dam to 10, and the rest was a death slog, trying to stay ahead of Alex and Zan. I finished in second, two minutes back of Ethan and one ahead of Alex.

It was a fun course, but I was just too tired to put much of an effort. I'm happy I persevered through the course, though my legs felt like jello that was on fire at the end.

C • split locations 1

WHNO - Splits