Training Log Archive: pfc

Short run at Rez Woods. Kinda hot and humid and I wasn't feeling that good - little bit of a cold (Thanks Brian)
http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/?r=2294609

C • Cold 2

Jiffy Lube to Wirth and back. With Ian and Biz.

C • Primal Quest in the South Dakota Badlands! 2

Rest of the time for TA2->TA3

Orienteering section at the Tower Ski Trails. A good middle-of-the-night section. I was careful to remember to plot the points this time. The first three were quick and easy and we stayed even with Bushwhackers. As we came back through the TA to cross the road and get CP 12, we saw MM on their way out.

Unfortunately, CP 12 gave us considerable trouble, and we ended up on the wrong hill with a bunch of nasty blowdown. This counts as the second big mistake, and took us about another half hour to get reoriented. (There weren't any trails marked on the east side of the main road, which made things harder.) However, once we got straightened out we quickly got the last one and ran back to the TA to get on the bikes. Bushwhackers only had about a ten minute lead at this point.

Followed gravel and logging roads SE from the TA and picked up three checkpoints in various clearings off the side of the road. Between the characteristic bends in the road and the bike computer, it was very easy to pedal hard to the right spot, nail the CP, and get going again. After 13-14-15, we turned off on an unmapped (but flagged) new logging road and worked our way over to the west end of Putnam Lake on a rocky snowmobile trail that we had to walk in sections. The trail gradually got lower as we approached the lake and finally dropped into a mix of mud and sphagnum bog. Right at the end of the ridable trail we saw four bikes laying on the ground - apparently belonging to Bushwhackers. This was a bit confusing, but we found out what happened a little later.

So we started rolling our bikes into the muck, and the footing wasn't too terible, although there were places where we sank up to our knees in sticky mud. We went a couple hundred meters east and then turned north along the lake shore. Some sections of the trail were entirely floating bog, so it felt like walking on a waterbed. Rolling the bikes wasn't much problem - they were too light to sink at all, and the wetness prevented any difficult vegetation. Shortly before we got to the section of trail where we needed to dive in for CP 16, we saw Bushwhacker coming back (to get their bikes.) They had misunderstood the instructions and dropped their bikes a mile away, thinking they needed to backtrack. Only after they got in to the CP did they see they were supposed to continue past it instead.

We slowed down to be certain about our attack point, and evenutally picked what turned out to be the right point with the shortest bushwhack. We cut north off the trail to pick up CP 16, and then continued east. The trail rapidly got better and T-ed into another snowmobile trail. We took it south and east, riding together with Bushwhackers who had returned with their bikes (they caught up because they only needed to ride - they already punched 16 from their first trip in.) After a couple of miles we hit a three-way intersection where the main road swung around to the northeast. This turned out to be a pivotal part of the race, as more than one team went too far in the wrong direction. We stopped after 100 meters, corrected ourselves and went down the easy-to-miss grass track instead. After crossing another low wet area, we pedaled out to CP 17 shortly before dawn. At this point we heard that Wedali was long gone, Bushwhacker had another 10 minute lead, but MM hadn't come through yet, so we had jumped up to 3rd.

Very cold ride south to the paved road, through Embarrass and up the back side of Giant's Ridge. Of course we all had wet feet, and the temperature had dipped in the upper 30s with enough dampness we could see our breath in the air. The solution, of course, was keeping a good pace, and the news at the last CP got our blood flowing.

Dropped the bikes and went for a quick orienteering loop up on the ski hill. We hiked up (included in next entry) and followed a taped route to the mystery challenges before 18. The first one was a balance test - all four teammates had to cross from log to log using only pair of wooden boards. The second one was a tightrope walk between two trees, with two pieces of webbing at chest height in addition to the footrope. Dave quickly figured out how to use the upper two to balance himself and we all got through it quickly. The third challenge was to pick up a carabiner from a distant tree without touching the ground, and involved rigging up our own traverse line (using a provided rope). After this, we punched CP 18 and proceeded to the final three.

Navigating from aerials on top on the ski hill. We bushwhacked out and got on a ski trail, but I biffed the map scale and took us on walkabout instead. Finally we ended up at the trail intersection where 20 was (although I did figure out where we were before then), and after that we quickly grabbed 19-20, run back down the hill through 21, and down to the finish in solid 3rd.