Racing 2:57:00 [3]
Snowshoe Raid
I raced this year again with Rick, the father of the Ripkin Boys, who I work with, but haven't seen in a while. Our course planning was not particularly well thought out as we mostly caught up on old times and had fun cutting up the Ripkin Boys' wild dreams of clearing the course. I was lead navigator and Rick has a good sense of direction so we started off fairly well and worked our way up to the 100 pointer at the top (but not before missing the left turn at the top while Bash and Dee breezed past us). While bombing downhill I took my thumb off the map and we took a wrong turn to the area close to 55,57,58 and 56. An E-W fence line on the map close to 53 was actually a deadend snowmobile trail and we took it while there about 15 people climbing up the hill and I didn't have the sense to think twice that we were in the wrong place and we kept . This screwed us up royally and we ended up bailing south toward the aid station with only 55 (and 54, the aid station) in the last hour.
We still won Masters Coed with only 340 points, but we should have been able to get over 400 points if I had been "on the map" more. I need to learn to stay put at confusing intersections, ignore the pressure of picking a direction before I'm ready, and double check trail bearings on the selected route to avoid mistakes sooner.
Still lots of fun and great to see so many racers out so early in the season.