night o is badass!
pacecounting actually worked a few times - twice down to the exact step!
also, i forgot spiders eyes are reflective at night, which was cool. unlike the weather. hot and humid by ben standards = elevated heart rate. woof. looking at the splits, i totally should have run long/red - i was a little worried that i was going to get stupid lost, and had a dinner to make it back for. that i barely made it back for, actually. next time!
splits:
1. little conservative out of the gate, and - before checking the quickroute - not entirely sure i took the trail i intended. complicated trail junctions are even complicated-er in the dark
2. took the conservative-but-higher-speed route. fasterness is debatable - i saw the same person leaving control 2 as i approached that i saw leaving control 1 as i approached - and they took the direct route.
3. longer leg, nailed the plan up to the end. drifted further west than i expected while attacking through the woods, and went the wrong way on the trail. lost 1:20 going to far, and then nailed the control on the way back.
4. nailed it. lot of stone wall catching features on the way there, and actual functional pacecounting to the control.
5. little rough coming out of four (marsh v wet trail debate in the dark), but put a plan together and rocked it. nailed the pace count perfectly northbound on the trail and eastbound to the control. was looking for 33 paces and planted my 33rd left foot under the control.
6. more (coincidentally) perfect pacecounting out of 5 to the catching feature trail (66 on the schnoz). misread a(n allegedly) complicated trail junction, we'll see what happened on the quickroute. cost 2:00. should've paid more attention to the topo detail. could've been in better contact with the map for a few trail junction, was more suprised than i should have been when i got to my
turn.at the end, should have perhaps considered cutting in earlier rather than taking the trail around
7. impassable cliff my ass! some good old wet, steep, dark, briary high angle descent. not the best choice but it worked out fine. some more good pacecounting to an obvious trail junction, but still good practice.
8. easy