My quickroute for the
middle shows both my drawn and my quickroute track for the race. Not the clean race I had been hoping for. I had a cleanish start, got off line on 3 as I had simplified to think that I was just following along the top of a line of cliffs after I cross the stream.... I followed the wrong "cliffs" and had to correct. But then really fell apart on the way to 6. climbing hills makes me stupid I guess. I really had thought that I had gone farther than I had and I was not good about relocating. Could have been much worse, already pretty bad as about a 3-4 minute error. Could have gone around, would have been safer. I didn't want to be afraid of the climb though... I felt strong and it looked faster to go straight.
back in the saddle for the middle section, but then chose to contour around the hill on the way to 12... again thought I had gone farther than I really had and dropped down into the barberry bushes and had to climb again back to the control when I had figured out, finally which of the various walls I had come across. Contouring would have been okay if I had executed better. Going over the top worked for Boris, and I probably should have done the same but it seemed like a lot of climb and I was feeling tired.
A bit sloppy on 13, and, comparing splits from when Jordan vetted the course, it looks like I lost time on 14 too. I wasn't super focused at the end just tired.
3rd, 1 min behind a broken Boris and 15 seconds behind a wily Wyatt.
Rough start to the season, but plenty of things in the race that I did well.