Race Evaluation
NEOC: Blue Hills Traverse: Traverse
cmorse
| 1. | +00:30 | Map, what map? Went with the crowd, intending to stay with J-J, by the time we reached the top of the hill my legs were telling me that staying with J-J wasn't in the cards today. Decided to look at map and realized I was past and to the left. Recover fairly quickly | |||||
| 2. | pretty good train headed down still, had to wait in line for the punch. | ||||||
| 3. | On the trail headed up the hill I saw Peter and JJ off east of trail - they missed big time. Up over hill around to right and then down - nice and clean - no more pack | ||||||
| 4. | pretty much on the line, then south of hill and across marsh then right and in. | ||||||
| 5. | +02:00 | took trails north of the line to trail bend by cliff, pace counting in and then realized I had stayed on contour instead of climbing, had to climb up to control getting in just before JJ & Peter | |||||
| 6. | +03:00 | Up through the scrub, seemed to be more small trails than mapped, up over by tower and straight down the line, hitting control about 20m right but going up and over obviously cost me a bundle of time, should have gone down trail and contoured in the white woods | |||||
| 7. | +00:30 | across slopes, down road to bend, in on trails joining up with Charlie and then straight through the woods to the south end of marsh. pretty much straight on the line from there but ended up in the clearing just sw of actual clearing | |||||
| 8. | +00:45 | straight, but a little tentative as contours did not seem to be matching, Charlie saw flag off to left, in right behind Charlie who took a sharp stick in the eye here. | |||||
| 9. | straight, coming to road just north of cliff. | ||||||
| 10. | trail to fork, straight up the nose - going to have to climb anyway and the nose looked clean | ||||||
| 11. | +01:00 | stopped to retie shoe, Charlie passes me. | |||||
| 12. | +01:00 | a little right of the line, across road, then saw a road to my left and swung toward it since control right near road - realizing too late that I was cutting back to road I just crossed. Damn... | |||||
| 13. | +02:00 | across road, jog right to find small trail - didn't, came back to where I crossed and decided to head straight up hill through the undergrowth. Not bad going really. Checked off boulders enroute and cleanly into circle. Lost time - a 1:15 at water stop and about 45 seconds indecision about not finding trail | |||||
| 14. | +00:30 | straight over through green, picking up trail left of line, then down spur, hesitation a little right of circle, then in | |||||
| 15. | +01:00 | thought little gap in green, then aimed off right on stone wall, a little too far it turns out, kind of crappy footing getting down to flag. Turned my ankle - first of many progressively worse turns as the day progressed. | |||||
| 16. | +01:00 | tried to contour south around hill, got too low, came back to it ok, met Charlie as I was leaving | |||||
| 17. | straight, across road, past wall end and onto trail, taking right fork, to closest trail bend and in. Starting to feel awfully slow | ||||||
| 18. | direct route looked slow, not much climb involved in taking trail so I went that way, slow jog but no mistakes, ankle turned a couple times on rocky trail | ||||||
| 19. | +00:30 | took small trail to left cutting across south of rocky ground, across small reentrant and through the green, had to hunt momemtarily on the other side. Only about 30 seconds of hesitation, the rest was just plain slow... | |||||
| 20. | +01:00 | left of line to trail, took trails to hill west of circle, then around and down, probably should have cut down sooner, but ankle was suggesting the trails where possible | |||||
| 21. | slow, straight and dead on | ||||||
| 22. | straight through, hitting trail junction just past green dead on. trails in and then downhill. Slow through the green and also final 100m in rocky ground. | ||||||
| 23. | cut west to trail, then trails to trail bend and down spur just right of the line. Rocky, slow and a bit of greenbriar in here. I guess its easy to be accurate when you are moving this slow. | ||||||
| 24. | straight. Spike | ||||||
| 25. | trail option right of line - slow on rocky sections, a bit better on pavement | ||||||
| 26. | +01:30 | Yup, blew an easy orange control. Up through little green patch to south side of hill (I was actually closer to saddle) and looking uphill saw nothing. Nada.... Maybe the circle was off or flag mishung, checked south of little knolls before coming back and climbing up the hill. Found it hiding behind some pines. Seemed to be hung a little higher than the center of the circle would indicate. | |||||
| F. | Pushed as best as I could around the pond. Wanted to finish in the top 10. Had to settle for 11th place. Oh well. Maybe next year I can actually be in some sort of cardio shape. |
Total Time Lost - 00:16:15