Brown X MiddleMiddle Distance course Brown X at Black Rock Forest.
1. My split sheet showed a time of :39 for the first leg, which seemed improbable. Turned out there was a 1:08 discrepancy in the start punch, which got fixed in the final results. Anyway, a pretty good leg to 1, saw the knoll with the wraparound cliff from a bit off and just headed right of it.
2. A little dicey getting down the hill and across the stream, saw the flag once I was heading up.
3. Up to the trail, along just a bit, in between the green patches and it was just a little further than I expected, but no problem.
4. Through a bit of green and across the first stream, aiming for the big rock and across the next stream. Knoll not looking much different from a boulder was just slightly to the right of my line.
5. On compass, staying right of the boulder group, hit it right on.
6. Downhill, around the cliffs, headed into the saddle, looking for the knoll at the top of the SW reentrant, just a little farther than I expected, but a spike.
7. On compass, following the countours and staying under the rocks. Easy enough.
8. Also easy, could see the long knoll from a distance and picked out the right knoll on top.
9. On compass, could make out the line of cliffs, but I was a little low, ahd to climb up a line or two.
10. At this point things were going really well, but somehow I drifted left and pretty soon I was just walking in circles. This turned out to be about a 5 minute walkabout.
11. Confidence a little rattled, I was hesitating a bit, and then a young fellow behind me fell hard and I stopped to see if he was ok, saw Steve T just behind him. A little slow, but reading things ok and came into it from just on the right side.
12. Still a little rattled, attempted to follow my compass, but got off to the left. Saw that I was in the wrong place and corrected over to the right, getting there behind Steve and about the same time as Leslie. Probably about 40 seconds lost.
13. Hustled down the hill to the trail and along the trail, picking up a little time on Steve. Saw Clint taking pictures which confirmed where the last control was, and then passed Steve on the run in. Ended up second in M-75+, 31 seconds behind Dave Cady. I was about 3-4 minutes behind Steve, who had started after me.