Training Log Archive: GlenT

Event: QOC Hoyle's Mill
 

Moving a bit slow today.

Event: Crooked Compass Adventure Trek
 

Crooked Compass Adventure Trek put on by Rootstock Racing. Start and finish were at the Manor Area of Cunningham Falls State Park near Thurmont, MD. The race had 37 equal value control points spread over the area southwest of the S/F using State Park and Frederick, MD municipal forest land. Maps were USGS topo maps at 1:24000 printed on 3 pages of 8.5 x 11 paper (overlapping). The woods were mostly open but with substantial areas of mountain laurel, which was passable but slower. There is quite a bit of rock underfoot and lots of big hills.

The race started at 7am (maps handed out starting at 5:30am), just before sunrise and finished at 5pm, just after sunset. To spread out the field at the start, we first had to run about 0.7km to the Catoctin Furnace historical area to pick up our passports (punch cards) and then return to the parking area to head out on the course. Considering that it's December, the weather was just about perfect - dry and partly sunny with temperature at the start about 40F and getting up to the low 50s.

Of the 37 checkpoints, two were mandatory, the rest optional. The first mandatory point was to route us around an environmentally sensitive OOB area. At the second mandatory point we received another map with 6 additional checkpoints (included in the count of 37). This map was a 1:5000 blowup of a section of the USGS map covering an area with a maze of mountain biking trails, and as we were told, the map didn't reflect the actual trails very accurately. But with six relatively closely placed controls, spending some time there was pretty much a no-brainer.

My race went pretty well (got to a bunch of points - 32 of the 37 available, finished on time, no navigational errors greater than about 10 minutes, and no apparent injuries). I spent a lot of time on trails since the map didn't show where the mountain laurel was and also to simplify the navigation. The trails were fairly well mapped with occasional extra or no longer existent ones but that wasn't a problem if you paid attention to the contours and distance traveled. I had trouble seeing some of the roads on the map (shown as two parallel black lines which don't jump out if they're parallel to contour lines) resulting in some pleasant surprises but also some sub-optimal route choices.

I lost time on three controls: I, Z and B6. On I (coming from E) I stayed too uphill to the right, hit a trail unexpectedly and figured it out from there (~5min). Going to Z (from BB) I got too far right and missed seeing the side reentrant I wanted. Ended up crossing the stream (inadvertently dipping a foot) and climbing up the road to get to the control (~10min). B6 was a boulder in an area with many boulders, none of which were mapped and on the map with the marginally mapped bike trail maze. Spent about 10 extra minutes wandering about to find it. Sub-optimal route choices on controls W and K (because I couldn't see a mapped road) but those probably cost less than 5 minutes each.

Control order: M1-C-D-F-B-A-E-I-H-J-M2-B4-B3-B6-B5-B2-B1-M-R-S-T-V-X-BB-Z-W-Y-U-Q-K-L-G. Preliminary results show me about 12th overall and 6th in the Solo Male category, which I'm quite happy with. Edit: Full results show me 7th of 32 in Solo-Male category and 15th overall (of 98 Solos plus Teams). Results.

Note: Track is up to the point my watch battery died. From here to the finish was about 7.2k (from o-maps' track) with only a little additional climb. Total time and distance adjusted. Heart rate also adjusted - wasn't wearing the chest strap.

C • nice run 9

Shakedown hike/jog/run with the rogaine pack (at about 14lbs, mostly water). No HR strap, so adjusted the intensity levels.

Neighborhood. 45F.