Training Log Archive: furlong47

West Point Rockhouse Mountain - Green (F35+)

Screwed up slightly right off the bat, looking for 1 too early. Came out of the green slightly left of 2, but was able to match everything up easily and pop through the little saddle to it. Pretty much straight line to 3 and 4. But then... holy long leg to 5!

Skirted along past the green/stone wall area, and passed right back through the start line, then down that hill through the white-ish corridor to the big trail. Up the trail to the smaller trail on the left, then at the stream junction cut up through the green. Now, it felt like I was in there for a very long time and I started getting a bit panicky. (I hate being in low visibility for long periods, and for some reason I was also thinking about rattlesnakes again, and I hadn't seen any people in a while, and felt like I was way out there alone....) But then I popped right out near the corner of the white and the swamp, where I wanted to be, and reorganized my thoughts and headed to the control. I still got a little more into the green than I wanted, but I could see the bag through it. Stopped nearby here to tie my shoes for the third or so time. The next time they came untied, I just left them that way until I got out of the blueberries.

Stayed high/south of the green to 6, catching a glimpse of 8 on the way, using the rocky curved area to attack. Easy pop down to 7, with the big cliffs already visible, and over to 8 where the hilltops easily stood out.

Went south to the trail and along it through the green. At the bend in the white with the stone walls, went down to the stream and climbed up and to the right side of the dark green, into the field, and through the underpass.

The rest of it was simple, follow trails home.

C • M O A L 2

To start, partly on road and partly in woods

Day 2 - Lake Welch - Green X - Splits

Event: West Point 39th National Meet
 

West Point Lake Frederick - Green (F35+)

Kind of a mediocre WP year for me. I was slow but in contact and control MOST of the time. However, when I wasn't things blew up on a few controls.

On this day, things went pretty well to 1 and 2 (though I ended up going almost the whole way around the rock feature at 2 because the control was tucked back in a bit.) On the way to 3 I had a cool experience when I looked up from my map to encounter a doe a few feet in front of me. I thought she would startle and run, but instead she started walking along ahead of me and kept stopping and looking back as if to ask whether I was coming. This continued the entire way to the control, at which point I went down to the road and lost her.

Apparently this leg to 4 messed up a lot of people, including some who went off the map, but on this one I did okay. I went up the road to cross the stream N of the swamp, then crossed the smaller green hill to walk along the base of the large cliffs of Blackcap Mountain. Where the cliffs ended, I walked up the large reentrant/saddleish thing to the yellow blobs and then walked along them until I could drop down to the control.

But I would get my comeuppance on 5. I crossed the stream and then went up between what I thought were the lower two cliffs, but promptly lost contact and spent a good 20 minutes wandering about in a sea of many, many cliffs. A few times I thought I had relocated or was in the right area, only to be proven wrong. I returned to a bag I had seen but couldn't figure out where it was. I found another bag which must have been from some training, flat atop a rock. Finally I gave up and resigned myself to crossing the mountaintop and heading back in... at which point I ran smack into the control. Of course. I still have no idea what exactly happened in here until I download my track (I may at times have been off the map to the NE of the control.)

The ones up top went okay, looked a little early for 7 but didn't lose too much time. Found 9 okay but on the way to 10 realized that I had actually been looking at 6 at least part of the time, so maybe some dumb luck there.

Didn't have a good enough plan to 10 and 11. I ended up being pulled left through the cliffs and getting too much down on the flat, therefore finding 11 before 10. So a climb back to 10, then back down to 11 again. Out to the road and the rest of this was pretty easy. Back at Lake Frederick, there was some kind of large paintball war going on including little paintball tanks (one of which I had seen in the woods on the road) and all kind of people in various armor and with various paintball weaponry. (At first I thought they were real weapons, then saw a tank and thought maybe flamethrowers! before seeing some people and vehicles with paint all over.)

AOWN: In addition to my spirit guide deer, two garter type snakes in two different areas (I am cool with these, just don't want to see any rattlesnakes, which luckily I didn't.)

Day 1 - Lake Frederick - GreenX - Splits

Got up to WP, realized I hadn't done anything yet today, so did one loop around the campground road (while my flashlight proceeded to die)

Private lesson on Shorty
My legs felt like crap.

At Silver Mine Park, first on the section with paved paths and then crossing the road to the section with dirt hiking trails.