Training Log Archive: CleverSky

I won? What? After an embarrassing performance like that? Shows how preposterous this whole thing was.

The most satisfying moment of the whole weekend was when I dumped my urushiol-coated shoes in the trash can.

Western Canadian Champs Long, Cypress River Sand Hills, 8.5 km, 220 m, M35, 2nd, 1st in category. The... well, it was still ugly, honestly.

I had the same start time as Fritz, and when we flipped our maps over, we both burst out in laughter, because the prospect of doing this seemed so preposterous.

Slow, slow, slow, that was my mantra. As careful as possible. I managed to get most of the way to the first control with reasonable discipline, though not as much as I should have had. I was getting a little shaky when I was getting kind of close, and I spotted a control that I knew wasn't mine, but I saw Fritz and another guy punch it. At that point I should have stopped and figured out for sure where it was and used it as an attack point. I thought I knew where I was, and got a little distracted by the yellow rope, which was going almost where I wanted to go (and it looks like I did pass pretty close to the control). Went through some green, got into a yellow area, thought I knew where I was, and climbed up the hill to look for something decisive to confirm my theory. With that confirmation, I read my way toward where I thought the control should be, and things aaaaaalmost made sense (and I passed close to the control again), and then I popped out near the yellow rope again. I went back to Fritz's control (easy to recognize because it had a very distinctive tree and a notable hill near it), saw that it was control 105, and this time figured out where it was. Tried again to carefully read my way to the control, slightly different from the first try, went into a greenish bit, and found the control. It was supposed to be on a small depression, but I did not see anything like a depression. Whatever. Nearly half an hour gone, not a good sign with respect to the three hour time limit.

I had hopes that, as with the Middle, I could hold it together after a bad first control. The second leg took me by the yellow rope again, and I thought things were okay, up over an open hill, and then... the other side of the hill didn't look exactly right. I needed to go through a strip of green into some yellow, which I did... but the yellow area didn't look right at all. Not at all. I had no idea what the hell had just happened, and this was looking like a DNF in the offing. Even looking at my track, I'm not sure what happened. In desperation, I continued in the where the control should have been, and was about to give up, unless... it was in that reentrant on the edge of the woods over there. Which it was.

And now, the most fearsome looking leg I've ever faced. 2250 meters through detailed stuff that all looked the same, with some ugly green mixed in. There was an around route to the left that stayed in yellow, but it looked like way too much mental work, and it wasn't clear what to do at the end. There was supposed to be a far right route to pick up the trail on the edge of the map, but they accidentally cropped some of the trail off and needlessly put the control descriptions where they blocked a critical piece of the terrain -- I might have gone that way if the map showed it. Instead, I opted for a straightish route that would pick up the trail somewhat near the control, then I'd go a little past it and attack from behind so as to get as close as possible while staying in the yellow. The final approach was therefore not all that technical, as I'd have a dead-solid attack point just a couple of hundred meters away. And off I went. The first 250 m went fine, but then I had to cross about 500 m of largely green. There were supposed to be white corridors in there, but my attempts to follow them didn't work out too well, and I was tangled in the gunk for a while. Eventually, as was my plan, I got to a small clearing, and started stringing together patches of yellow. I encountered Kate (I think) in here; she apparently lost a lot of time on this leg, got one more, and that was it for her. 2/3 of the way along I came to the open area on the south flank of the large dune ridge, worked my way along the top to the pass that got me beyond it, and then it wasn't much further to the trail. Yeah! I followed my plan (and saw a deer near the trail), attacked very carefully from the north, and was pretty pleased to see the control. Nearly an hour for that one leg and the best split on the course (though folks on other courses had the same leg and did it much faster). According to the control descriptions, the first water stop was not until #7, well more than halfway around the 8.5 km course, but #3 was an unadvertised water stop. For a moment I was grouchy, thinking that if I had known that there would be water here, I would have eaten the gel in my pocket. But then I came to my senses and realized that there was no reason not to stay here for an extra minute or two so I could eat the gel and drink some water (it was quite hot and sunny!) (I missed punching the split on my watch here, the control was at the little dogleg at 1:36.)

On the way out of the control, I saw Reine-Marie on her way in, and I also got my act together for a while. For the next five controls, I was deliberate and meticulous and did the navigation the way it needed to be done. On #9 the track shows a couple of weird doglegs, which I think were the result of my mixing up up versus down temporarily, and then correcting. Near #9 I encountered somebody who I assume was Gilles, and we also got back into yellow rope territory. I think I figured out what was going on first, and really spiraled in to the control, and I believe I saw him still looking as I was leaving.

#10 was a spectator control on a hill overlooking the finish, and I was a little behind Will Enger on my way to it, but he was on his way to the finish, having just completed the loop that I still had to do. I had 20 minutes left to get around that if I wanted to make it under the three hour time limit. Unfortunately, I was running out of brain, and was also having a lot of trouble seeing because pure molten salt was dripping into my eyes.

#11 was a small depression in what I thought was a green area. There were depressions in the green, but they don't seem to be on the map. The control was actually just beyond the green, on the edge of the yellow, and next to the yellow rope. I was just wandering around when I saw it, and I checked the code not expecting it to be mine. The route to #12 offered plenty of opportunity to go though green, and the elephant trail along the yellow rope seemed to present a path of least resistance, though it wasn't making me happy. I spotted a distinctive feature an an adjacent hillside and pushed through some green to get there in order to be in the yellow (and as it turned out, near another section of yellow rope). I worked my way toward the control, though I was feeling pretty stupid at this point and really unsure of my location. I finally found what I thought was a particular depression near the control, then a couple of dot knolls... I was getting closer. I was having a little trouble putting together exactly where I needed to go (the control was a tiny clearing inside of green), but Gilles showed up about then and he went to it. As we were leaving, Reine-Marie showed up.

Two minutes left, so there was no hope of finishing on time. Gilles and I headed off toward #13, and I just couldn't figure out what was what, and I ran into the damn yellow rope again. I wasn't sure if I had drifted left or right, but Gilles went right, and I thought... maybe left?... and I spotted a control in a depression with a patch of green, just what I was looking for. Yeah! I went to it, checked my code, I was looking for 108, and this was... 105. Dammit! I was lost.... wait... 105? Wasn't that Fritz's first control? I looked at the tree, and the hill, and found the spot on the map, and successfully attacked my control.

Gilles had gotten it four minutes before me, but he had started three minutes before me, so he had a little over a minute lead (though I didn't know that at the time, and wasn't even sure it was him). But there were two straightforward controls left, and I took over two minutes out of him, finishing one minute in the clear. Reine-Marie came in a few minutes after me, having had even more trouble on #13, but as she had started quite a bit later, she was 10 minutes faster (all of which I gave up on the first control). We three were the only finishers on Course 9, and we were all over three hours.

Tim was a no-show on Sunday (no idea why), so the first-place award, which I assume was based on combining the results somehow, went to me, as the only one with a time in all three events. It was a victory attributable not to skill, nor to athletic prowess, but rather to stubbornness. Overall comments on the event tomorrow.

Results
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