Training Log Archive: silkychrome

Event: No Sleep 24hr AR (USARA)
 

BIKE 1 (CP 1-2)
roads in a pack to a TA1. 2 CPs to get, on the first one Andrei found someone's paddle shaft laying in the woods, returned it to the owner (K-Mint) at our bikes, not sure if he ever found the other one?

TREK 1 (CP 3-6)
kinda short, mostly trail, OAB. starting to get hot!

BIKE 2 (CP 7-9)

TREK 2 w ROPES (CP 15-19)
got to the base of dam just behind Kuat and Rib, they TA'd faster and i was worried we would get bottle-necked at the ropes. we could have either paddled or trekked here but chose to trek anyway and ended up not waiting at all on ropes (ascend, rappel, free climb, rappel) which was great. ran back in 1st after Kuat missed CP15 and had to go back, not sure what Rib was doing.

PADDLE 1 (CP 10-14)
put in in 1st, nice OOB paddle w some short treks to CPs, we had a slight bobble on one of them but took out in 1st, w Kuat within sight behind us and Rib maybe 20-30min back?

BIKE 3 (CP 20-21)
on some trails then gravel, Kuat caught us but didn't pass for a while, then finally they went ahead at the lookout tower, but we got ahead again in the trails and they just rode behind. we thought this was weird bc they are all stronger on singletrack but just tried to do our thing. pretty fun descent into TA4.

TREK 3 (CPs 22-3?) "the long trek"
we wanted to start this w as much daylight as possible, it started really good w a nice swamp wade and checking off the sketchier controls. 28 "hilltop" was missing and we spent 20min looking. just abandoned it. then ran on trails to 27 "waterfall", passing Kuat on the way out as they were running in. however we knew they went to 25-26 first so hard to tell advantage. then we went to i think 23 "15m E of creek junction" and had a little bit of hard time finding the flag in thick bush, this was just after sunset. but then real disaster hit, we went for i think 24 "top of cliff" and found a very nice cliff just a little bit off of where it plotted, scoured the cliff, no flag, ran all around to an adjacent cliff, no flag, finally checked the plot and we were 1k off (i had done plotting the night before). UGHHH. and worse, the 1k was to the north where we had already been. so. back out to trail, run up, get flag, run back...all told about 1:00 of mistake time that was totally avoidable. UGH. finished up out big loop w no other bobbles. back thru TA to get a little bit of food then out on a final, smaller loop w 2 CPs. the first was super fast, the second i think 26 "crevice in base of cliff behind large boulder" plotted dead on a stream w 2 cliffs on either side, each w their fair share of large boulders and crevices. we must have looked in about 50 crevices before finding flag. frustrating and definitely felt unfair, and de-motivating for inexperienced teams ("hey go find this tiny thing among all of these identical features with unhelpful UTMs") so that took us 45min. so all told about 2hr of wasted time out there.

anyways came back to TA in 2nd, Rib was only 20-30min ahead! Kuat was in TA w us! so everyone got beat up overnight. just mad that ours was partially self-inflicted.

BIKE 4 (CP 32)
i was dreading the bike out of TA, up a big rocky hill. but actually the climb was really fun, only a few parts unrideable, we enjoyed it! Kuat doing their weird "no passing" thing. then when we got on to gravel, we rode away. we were all v puzzled. back to S/F line, tried to TA out before Kuat but they were right behind.

TREK 4 (CP 33-34)
a bit herky-jerky w the trails around camp and veg, but made it to the put in w our friends from Kuat. about 30min back still from Rib.

PADDLE 2 (CP 35-39)
night paddle on a lake that looked DUMB on the map (dammed end of Sugar Creek) but was actually really cool in person. lots of logs to negotiate which was fun in the witching hours and helped us stay awake. however the CPs on this section required some short treks, the first of which got us all turned around and lost another big chunk of time (30min?). then we paddled to the swamp, again could not find flag, begged Rib for help and they did after confirming how far back we were (smart move). the next few CPs were fine and we got to enjoy a really beautiful sunrise.

TREK 4 (no CPs)
just a road/powerline run back to camp.

BIKE 5 (CPs 40-47)
we came back to camp w about 2hrs left. the bike looked short on paper but all on RD-added trails so not sure how accurate?? but Rib had just finished right before we were in TA so it took them about 1hr. encouraging for us. so we rode out and got 'em all w very few issues. the trails were really fun too. although we were not able to catch Kuat.

so we finished 3rd co-ed/OA. a good course set by No Sleep (except the crevice CP...dislike). and they had cutoffs in place so every team made it to every section. happy to see so many more people after the inaugural small race last year. hope it continues to grow!

so normally my role on the team is the "admin" person, like calling out clues for each CP and taking care of race instructions (in-order vs. rogaine, estimated time for each leg, that sort of stuff). i usually make a little race summary sheet for these things and keep that in my shoulder pouch. well last couple races i've found that taking it in/out of the pouch is slow and awkward, esp on the bike. so for this race i got an orienteering clue sheet holder and make my race summary sheet fit in to that. it was so amazing. this idea is not revolutionary but for $8+$20 shipping and some contact paper, it was highly effective. http://www.kanpas.com/kanpas-middle-distance-orien...

C • Congratulations 5

EZ social spin w Space Monkey

EZ spin around CCL

EZ run w T w a swim stop.