Training Log Archive: MIclimber

Event: Nitrogaine IV
 

Nitrogaine 3rd year in a row, 2nd year with partner Adam Banker. My very long review and recollection of how the race went.

https://www.livelox.com/Viewer/Nitrogaine-IV/NItro...

Had a healthy pizza dinner at Epic Pizza in Commerce beforehand. Will definitely have to to go back there, the pep pinwheels called jo jos were amazing. Arrived about 730 to check in with Mr. Wonderful, had a few minutes to get changed before map hand out at 800pm. Got the 2 maps and started to trying to decide CW or CCW due to the non central HQ. I knew the feeling right away, because it was similiar to Nain Rouge, in that you would have to make a choice at the beginning or the end most likely to run road without getting many CPs. We decided to do a CW route thru the interior where there was a fair amount of control density, and then see how we were on time for the west map, leaving 2-3 options of going further or cutting off controls, before returning along the north part of the course and then back to the east side of the east map, leaving ourselves a few easy ones no matter what.

It's funny, we always plan for the best case scenario, but even without mistakes, don't have the speed to clear this kinda distance. So much optimism at the beginning and then like 3 hours in, oh yeah, I know how this goes, what were we thinking.

We started with 29, 26, 65, 33, all fairly easy. Nailed 81 our first true test with following a bearing off trail. It went perfectly as I was extra careful to follow it closely and not make any mistakes right out of the gate. It also helped it was only a couple hundred meters away! 7 controls in the first hour, woo ahead of clearing pace! Did the same thru 43, 35, did well on those too, but likely got some tip offs from distance team lights as confirmation.

42 came out to the trail and was tricky because there were 2 choices that looked the same. Saw a team heading off too far southwest and decided they had to be going wrong, perhaps now they make have been going back to 65 in hindsight, not sure, but trusted compass and went to the NW reentrant and luckily or skillfully I guess, came out to it right on. Straight north to 75 and straight west to 73. Two more 70 pointers, that were not too difficult, more confidence! Decided to take the trail and then cut south to 77. Strategy was working well in that we were picking out the subtle bends in the trail and trail crossings were we attempting to hit. It was nice to be able to track ourselves with the numerous junctions and trail split offs. Followed Waldo to 55, we would have had a slight bobble without his assistance. Followed Waldo along the trail to 41, we swapped leads a couple of times, and then we decided we were going to in front. Turned out to be our first bobble. We missed, the intended NW trail junction somehow, likely overgrown or too faint to see in dark. We realized we had missed it when we knew too much distance had passed and the trail was not matching up. I guessed where we were along the trail and decided to cut in NE and said let's go 100 m and see if we can find. Was hoping my guess would be confirm by the watersource next to 41, but never saw it, instead saw lights of a team leaving the area, and then noticed the reflectors. Whew, only lost about 5 minutes there.

Because we wanted to be to our main decision point at CP 74 by about 2-2.5 hours, we knew we were running a bit behind now, and decided to cut 60 now. It was one of the ones we knew in planning was likely to be chopped due to distance for just 1 CP. So we made our way to 70 via trail junction no problem. Then our 2nd issue was 62. Somehow we managed to drift 25-50 meters east of our north bearing and missed it. I knew we had missed it because I could hear cars on the road. But was unable to relocate in the dark, so we made the decision to go north out to the road and relocate from the small parking lot pullout. When we hit the road, we only had to travel a minute or so to see the pullout and knew that's what had happened. So we headed back in due south, only going back east about half way from where we came out. Which turned out to be still a little bit too east, but at least this time we were able to locate a couple of distinct features and finally found it. Lost about 12 minutes here. On to 80, which we spiked, and felt back on track.

But then our 3rd error to 61. The trail turned indistinct on the top of the hill and we unknowingly ended up at the west swamp. But I surmised that we were at the tip of it and began to head back east knowing it was between the two. But when it ended and it wasn't there confusion set in. Turns out wasn't at the tip like I thought, and so we searched and searched the entire area it seemed like, before we came to the other swamp down the steep hill. We knew if we just followed to the end of this we would hit it and we did. Simply an issue of not going far enough the first time or the second time, sigh. Lost about 15 minutes here.

No problem to 58 following the edge of swamp. But then another major mistake to 74. We went down the hill to the little finger, or so we thought, and took a bearing from there. Seemed like a decent idea. But turns out we were not at the finger, but south of it. So the bearing we followed took us to nowhere and I think a rockpile not mapped. Which is what we were looking for on the east side of the control. So we wandered and ended up way too far west. Again hearing cars and finally the trail and a water source, which we should not have been anywhere near a water source, took so long to confirm where we actually were. That sinking feeling was setting in. But finally relocated and set back in to get it, down and up the super steep depression and still came in a little too far north. Lost about 22 minutes here.

We knew we were now an hour behind where we wanted to be and there was much discussion about heading further west or not. We decided to take them one by one and seem how many to keep versus peel off. We headed to 57 and followed the trail and under the tunnel, which at the time we thought was weird, but then when we ended up at the water stop, not paying attention to direction, just turns, we realized oh the tunnel was the road, and head back north to 57. Lost 5 minutes.

After 57, we cut 82, 66 due to distance, and headed out to the powerlines for 67. Somehow our distance got off, as I was looking for the first marsh, but somehow never saw it, and when we got to the second marsh, we thought it was the first marsh. Then we came to the stream. And somewhat quickly discussed that we had to have gone too far. We took a look at the stream crossing and were like yeah no that doesn't seem to be a crossing, like as indicated on the map, at least one that we wanted to use. So again made the decision to cut the entire west side of the river, and then attempted to fine the trail to 67. It seemed to be non existing, and we decided to guess heading north unsure which section of land we might be on. We fought threw waist/chest high grasses and then some marsh to make it to dry land. Decided ok, let's head north for 100 meters and see if this is the right section of land between the marshes. Oddly at the about the point we were going to give up, I took one more step and we found the trail. And then the control about 50 meters away. Quite the shock to have essentially guess our way to this one. Probably lost only 5 minutes to this, but it seemed much more.

Managed to find somewhat dry ground thru the marsh to 76 and back to solid ground. This was another tricky one, strategy was to just keep following the river and keep our eyes peeled to the right at about 400 meters. We knew we would hit the stream to the north if we went to far. And we ended up spiking this one. It was a moment of jubilation for us, that was tough, but the strategy worked great.

Managed to again find somewhat dry ground thru the marsh back to solid ground, although this section was a bit more gnarly and precarious for getting wet. On to the hunter's trail and then found the trail to the east for 63. We followed it until it ended and we were again looking for the dubious crossing. We discussed a moment if this was it, as it looked nothing like a crossing to me, other than a swamp. I brought up to Adam, maybe this was Jens idea of a crossing. But we decided to look for a better spot. Big mistake. We went a little southeast and started to go out into the swamp. At first it seemed doable like the previous two. But then Adam fell in. Then I fell in. Then we both were surrounded by head high just shit, absolute horror. Argh, why are we here, why did we sign up for this, going thru my head. Then Adam says, hey we are heading north, shit we need to head east. Which now looking at the livelox, shows we would have ran straight into the control by mistake, but we corrected to the east and ended up on solid ground unsure which coastline we were at. We ran up and down unable to figure it out, crossing a ditch, which I could not see on the map even though I thought to myself this has to be a mapped feature. On the way back north, I finally notice the ditch on the map, crap we are on the wrong section of coastline. So finally back north and all the way around back to the south into the section this control was protected by. Ugh, our worst one. And completely swamped shoes for the last 2.5 hours was not appealing. Lost 30 minutes here.

Knowing we were struggling now, the big knife was coming out. Cutting off 47, 39, let's head to 72 and get back on track. We ran the road and trail and maybe made up a few minutes there. Exiting 72, vines hogtied both my legs and down I went. I had already tripped probably 3 times on deadfall. Kinda tweaked my wrist a bit this time.

More trail running to 38, 32. Stopping at the top of the hill for 38, o m g, the mosquitoes. I inhaled one and nearly choked to death. Couldn't keep my mouth open to talk to Adam, I was like dude we need to vacate right now. So back down the steep hill to 32. The meet here from a couple of months ago came in handy, as I knew the trail exit back to the road from here. This is where I picked up controls on my bike and had to walk my bike down this trail, so it was fairly memorable. Back to the road and past the water stop, jogged to the equestrian staging area after decided to cut 40 also. Only an 1.5 hour left, so we knew this was get as many points as we can instead of distance. So decided to shoot for 52, 79, 71 and then reassess.

Then the rain started to pickup, by the time we got to 52 we were soaked. Headed to 79 where I noticed we could use a nice faint connector trail. It was hard to spot the opening, but we managed to find it and we were running and again I caught a shin level deadfall. This one was bad, went down super hard, cracked my shin and cramped my calf at the same time. Took me a minute to corral the pain into standing, and then hobbled out to the main trail. Nailed 79, but with one hour to go, made the decision to cut 71 as well and get the 4 we had purposefully left for the end, 31, 34, 24, 20. I may have considered getting 48 too, if I was able to run more, but was tired, cramping and soaked. I knew we had a bit of distance to get back just walking so, 4 in the last hour considering our plight, seemed reasonable.

31 was really cool on the rockpile, I was happy to see my partner get some bouldering in. Sunrise! A moral victory! On the road to 34, Topo caught and blew past us, we knew we were getting close to our 400 meters from the start of the road to cut into the field, but I let them lead us in to 34, thanks for the entry point!

A nice finish from 24 and then a jog trying to keep it together, my knee seized up, but I wanted to finish strong, so I told Adam let's jog to 20. Managed to keep it together all the way down the beach and back to the HQ, until about 50m from the finish and my hammy cramped. My whole left leg I think from the bad fall was jacked.

In the end 1600 points, 32 out of 50 controls. 17 miles traveled. It felt like a bit of redemption to get more controls that last year, but knew we left quite a bit on the table with roughly 90 minutes worth of errors. Likely would not have cracked 40 controls, but possible. The terrain and trails generally proved easier than Silver Lake. Still a very big area to cover.

I ended up only eating 1 honey stinger about halfway in. I just wasn't that hungry, I think the pizza carried me. I also over clocked my gatorade mixture ratio from normal, simply because I couldn't find the scoop. Perhaps those two factors were the reason. I took 2 salt tabs before the start and mid way also.

My partner Adam was great as always, we work well together confirming and agreeing on strategy and route choices as well as pick each other up at the needed times, so thanks to him.

Thanks to MetroNav, despite the printed questionable crossings and swamps, in the end it wouldn't have mattered on staying dry due to the rain anyways, but overall was a good race, a good mixture of density and distance and nav. We had more highs than lows.

C • apologies on the labeling of "crossing" 10