Training Log Archive: CleverSky

Harris Center, Blue, 7.9 km, 1st place out of... 1. Yeah, I was apparently the only idiot who elected to do Blue, but at least that means Alar didn't set it for no reason. Muggy and buggy. A couple of the non-spiked controls were just poorly executed routes, though I still went directly to the controls. A few others I got close, but had to fumble around for a while to find the right feature. And on a couple of them, I was just wandering in the wilderness for a while trying to figure out where the hell I was. The situation wasn't helped by the fact that the course printing was very red, and in the shade I had trouble distinguishing it from black. I even started out in the wrong direction because I only saw the first digit in the number "19", but Alar made a helpful wisecrack that straightened me out. It was difficult to drink at the water stops, because the mosquitoes were so fierce (I had put on plenty of bug spray, but after 10-15 minutes it had become completely ineffective). At control #5, 25% of the way through the course in terms of number of controls, more than an hour had elapsed, and I was thinking it could be a really long day (though 4-5 was a very long leg). All in all, a pretty pathetic showing, I honestly didn't have a lot of fun, and I seriously considered DNFing numerous times, but I toughed it out, and I don't regret having done it. (Whether I'd make the same choice in conditions like that in the future is a different matter.)

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