Training Log Archive: Work4justice

Event: SMOC Island Lake Score-O
 

Conquer the Crossroads

Conquer the Crossroads with syd and Downtown Andy Brown!

What a day. It was really warm. My Garmin said it got to 93, but syd and I surmised that it was probably a bit off. But I looked at hx weather and it was in the mid to upper eighties. For us, that played a big role in the race. We are guessing it was an impact for other teams as well. The great news for me was that because we slowed down, I had the chance to really follow the map, ask Syd questions and some of my regular nav errors became better understood. For example, sometimes, I don't stop for 30s enough to look at the map and make sure things match up, or, if I get confused I might have the tendency to go in the direction I think I should go instead of confirming. And, judging map distance, I was always way off which means reading contours and features is even more important.

Went in with Syd as the navigator and Andy and I doing whatever we could to move things along! We decided to attack the northern section of the map because 1) it had a greater density of points and 2) had more climb than the southern section. Turns out it was a good decision! We headed straight up the hill to 35--oof! then on to the rest of the course. Syd felt like her nav was wobbly but I didn't see it. We did agree that we would confirm our next leg with each other as we exited controls.

Did a lot of hill, spur, creek, spur, hill rotations for the first few hours. We got to one of the water controls within the first 2 hours and filled up there. Then, it was ridgeline attacks for about five controls. We were running at most down hills and flats and on retrospect maybe wasn't the best choice. Around this time Andy started having a lot of trouble. He had some very bad cramping in his left leg and felt so sick, so the rest of the race was a bit of a death march for him. Syd took his pack and I took the punch card and later loaded up on water. And several times, I dunked my hat in a creek and waded in the water to cool down.

Syd started to adjust our route to better accommodate getting rather warm, and Andy's situation. We dropped two 40s to not do the climb. And, along the way on the road, we saw the race director and he gave us a gallon of water SCORE! We didn't get the points for going to the next water control, but we were totally OK with that. We changed our route again to get away from climb and proceeded.

When we got to 37, we realized if we dropped another 40 and 50, we would only have one climb left. Andy said he really started to feel quite bad, so the decision was easy. From there, kept with the creek and got all the controls along that route. Then to 38, which was a bit out of the way, but totally worth it. It was quite a lovely control location. The out for 22 and on our way back!

I had my eye on the Rib guys and there were a few others in the group (7 I think?) They came in about 45minish later with maybe 2 flags on us. And the Mighty Mintos cleared the darn thing! Love those guys.

Great day in the woods, lots of fun. Love this race. Syd is so tough, and Andy really toughed it out. If I felt that bad, I would have asked the race director for a ride!!!!

Double checking pace counts.

Looking toward trying to do more orienteering, and Bird Hills wasn't exactly the place to do it. I picked some locations over by Barton and Bird Hills that were so green. And, they were several of the first ones so the wind went out of my sails--and when I was in open woods, I got some very strange and disapproving looks. Plan to go back to ILRA and Cherry Hill.

C • there are other nearby options 5

Post pig pedal.