Training Log Archive: CleverSky

Hanging most of the White and Yellow controls, and six of the remaining Billygoat controls, plus putting out some extra water. Visibility is still good, blackflies are emerging (but not yet biting), and I found two ticks crawling afterwards. Low energy today, and I was pretty sleepy this morning. Just a few easy control placements inn the morning, set up the finish, and we should be good to go.

Registration has closed, and we have 74 people signed up for the Billygoat, the smallest field since 1986 (although the PygmyGoat has probably drawn away some people who might otherwise have started the Billygoat intending to not finish). And that's fine. Looks like the shirts will work out, too, with no margin to spare on the timing, and the numbers will be okay provided at least one person who requested a Large is either a no-show, or goes overtime or DNFs, or is willing to accept a medium or XL.

Setting out six more controls, in the heart of the map, two of which were water stops. Just as well that I didn't have the GPS watch, because I really don't want to know about the wandering route that I took to one of them, while carrying four gallons and three control stands. I got back to the car at 8:24, and grabbed three more controls and stands, but before I got to the first one, I realized that it was doo dark to read the codes on the control descriptions, so I turned around. I'll have 14 relatively close ones to put out on Saturday (including White and Yellow) and seven visible ones Sunday morning. Should be fine.

Scoped out the one extra control location to make the shorter routing work (it's fine), then hung the first batch of controls for the Billygoat and put out one water stop. Distance is measured straight line between controls. Managed to keep my feet dry with a bit of effort. A couple of map tweaks, and I'll be sending out the print order tonight. Effort alternated between hustling along to try and beat the fading daylight, and standing still to set up control stands. Got back to the car at 8:10, which was okay, but I wouldn't want to push it much beyond that unless I were just heading back to the car on a trail. Thursday night's batch will be a little more constrained, but more strenuous as well, but with everything properly staged in the car before I start, I shouldn't have trouble (might even be able to do a few extras to save myself work on Saturday).

Billygoat test run. Time includes a few mistakes, and a little bopping around in one area where I realized that some minor map updating is needed (rerouted trail). I did skip one control, a reasonable one to skip, that was comparatively uninteresting, and that set up a more interesting approach to the next control. All by myself, which has its disadvantages, but knowing where everything was and having routes in mind helped (I didn't look at the map all that much). Maybe 8 minutes in mistakes (2, 4, and 2 minutes) and another couple of minutes investigating the changed trail. Still, the time is a bit longer than my recent Billygoat times, so I need to think a bit more about whether to shorten it up a little bit. If I scale my time today by my ratio to the winner in Delaware, I get 1:43, which is more than the 1:30 - 1:35 that I'd like. I'm leaning toward going shorter, I think. It would also avoid an area that's a little thick, and the map update would be unnecessary. It means using a control location that I haven't looked at yet, though I could check it out Tuesday evening.

C • Seems like several good rea... 19