With an hour less on our race clock, we knew we had to be super dialed in if we had any chance of maintaining our lead. While the field was a fair bit smaller than usual - none of the Canadian snowbunnies made the trip! - there were some strong teams there, so we had our work cut out for us.
We spent a long time Saturday night looking at various possibilities and landed on what we thought was the optimal route for the day, balancing distance, terrain, and point values.
Temps on Sunday were right around freezing (with real-feel in the teens all day). I was a little more cautious with clothing - fleece tights and rain pants on the bottom; midweight smartwool, fleece vest, and rain jacket on top. I probably could have done without the vest, but I was never uncomfortably warm. Just felt a bit bulky.
We got to the start/finish just a few minutes before our 9am start time and well after the rest of the teams started, so we had no idea what anyone else was doing, but we got the impression from the RDs that most teams were sticking to the east side of the map. Our plan was to start with a pocket of four points to the north. This stretch would have the most overland navigation of the day, and we knew it would be the crux of our race. We had about 1.5 kilometers on roads before heading into the woods, and I was relieved that my lungs felt relatively normal. Usually after asthma issues, it takes them a couple days to recover.
We hit the first two points pretty cleanly and saw that Untamed New England (JayXC and teammate) were taking the same general route as we were. On the way to the third point, we got sucked into some nasty swamps, which slowed us considerably. There had been a light snow overnight, which created a nice crunch in the woods, but also meant that the swamps had a thin layer of ice that we broke through with every step, into shin-deep water. Much less comfortable when it was 30 degrees out than 60. It was the low point of the day, but things turned around quickly when we got to the control and realized that we'd gained about 45 minutes on UNE and were just 10 minutes behind them.
We hit the next point, on the eastern edge of a beaver dam, 6 minutes behind, and noticed that their footprints were heading along the edge of the lake. We decided to cross over the dam (got a little bit wet but nothing worse than the earlier icy swamps) and then make our way to the NW quadrant. We passed UNE somewhere during that stretch and then spent the next few hours traveling with them or criss-crossing each other.
We were pretty sure they needed 60 points (two additional CPs, given what was available and within reach) to beat us, and so we weren't surprised when, with about two hours to go, we all hit a road junction together and they continued down while we turned east. We had thought about trying for a couple points further south but weren't confident that we'd be able to get our two final planned CPs and make it back before the cutoff. We got to our attack for the first of the two and looked at the clock - we had exactly an hour left. We gave ourselves a 21-minute time limit to find it and ran into the woods. We hit the checkpoint in 13 minutes and decided to continue on for the last one, rather than taking the conservative option and turning back for the road.
Brent nailed the final CP and we hit the road to the south with 35 minutes on the clock, 2.5 kilometers from the finish. We coasted in with ten minutes to spare -- definitely one of the best days of racing we've had.
In the end UNE got the same number of points for Day 2, but with our cushion from Day 1 we came away with the win. Overall, a great weekend of adventure-ing.
Official race report:
https://rootstockracing.wordpress.com/2017/03/01/s...