Possum Trot. Nice day cool start but warming up.
Mass start ran well and clean . Thorns sharp in some places . Got 2 nd place.
Mass start : Andrei took off on a sprint and opened up a gap of 100m on every one else as he ran down the road. I found myself in a pack of about 6 of us (Tom Carr, Tom H , Mike Egl and I) forming up behind Andrei. Ran with this rough group through to 6 .. dropping 2 on the way and catching Andre at 6. Tom C and I parted ways at 6 ( I ran alone to the trail on the S and W. Caught up with Phil S (who had skipped 6) and ran with him to 7. I powered up off 7 with safe outside route to 8 (using fence corner as attackpoint, slower but easier running at edge of open) . Phil beat me to 8 by a few seconds then I left him behind.
#9-18 running with Mike E and Tom H close
#19 was running well so powered past Mike E when he stopped to tie shoe . Got 1st place for the split 18-19 . Dropped Tom H
#20 now 1 min ahead of Mike E who was just coming in sight of the water stop when I left
#21 (Mike E's skip) solid good running to 22 23, 24 , 25 all on my own
found a good river crossing (about 3" deep with rocks) and made skip #1 (26) and so straight to #27 and met up with Mike E (coming from 26) . Saw Tom Carr at 27 who going N out of the control towards 30? (which i thought was odd at the time and then it was explained later that he was skipping 28 and 29 a 2 consecutive skip - not allowed so a mispunch)
2nd skip for me and Mike E was the long out and back to 28, so Mike E and I ran together to 29 30 31 (where we caught and passed Joe Barrett)
I powered up for the last 2km (said hi as i passed MNOC Larry Mollan on the 1/2 possum trot) . Mike E went right and I went straight for 31 to 32 (i was 9 seconds faster) and now 24 seconds ahead .
Sprint to trail and through woods to river crossing and 33 (go control) now 30 seconds ahead of Mike E (who I saw crossing the river as I punched GO control) . Fast run in to finish in 2:28:37
Was a very good run, very thorny (vicious thorns that you could not ignore - shredded my tights that I put in garbage after the finish) Navigated well . Well hydrated with Camelback , Great temperature (I wore long sleeve shirt and long sleeve MNOC jersey and 35-45 deg F; no gloves , no hat ) .
Finished about 17 mins after Andre and about 8 mins behind Tom Carr . Got 2nd place (since Tom C did illegal 2 consecutive skip)
Podium pix at :
https://www.facebook.com/MNOClub/posts/13432477256...Average pace was 9:08/km average cadence 132 spm average stride 0.95m from Garmin Connect
Routegadget:
http://www.ptoc.org/gadget/cgi-bin/reitti.cgi?act=...LIfetime standings , now in 7th place at
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/14CiFis9MKw...