Training Log: JanetT

Tucson dinners:
Fri - Chipotle
Sat - Magpie pizza downtown on 4th (not as good as we remembered)
Sun - taco party
Mon - Growler microbrew pub (100 taps), on Oracle, Oro Valley
Tue - Casa Molina on Speedway

Street-O on an aerial map of Bisbee, AZ, same control locations as before (Feb 2018) for the most part (maybe one or two different questions). Didn't try for 13 or 8 up on the trail. Counter-clockwise, vs clockwise last time. I remembered a couple of answers but went to check them out to be sure (for the most part).

18 correct answers (21 total control sites)

To start of Cholla Chaser at Catalina SP. Sunny and temps in mid to upper 60s

Mass start Cholla Chaser with a window to begin with (my age/sex group had to visit 2 out of 7 controls in the window), with a return to the start location and then a 6-control standard course. I finished 21st.

Visited C and D in the window, but didn't take the "best" route to the first one though I found it just fine because I saw where people were coming out of it. Glen (who had 4 controls in the window) caught up and passed me between 3-4. I only passed (as far as I know) Faye (on the downhill trail leaving the window) and Reta (near #1).

Pushed where I could, particularly when running on trails. Avoided most of the cacti today, but have a small thorn in one of my toes that I was only able to remove part of. It must have been in my shoe already because I can't see how it could come through the toe cover of the shoe. (Sole is starting to detach from the upper, which is sad because these are my favorite O shoes and I can no longer get them. I'll wear trail shoes tomorrow.)

Cholla Chaser - Splits

Brown classic at Catalina SP, 4.3 km, 130m climb. Sunny and 60s to low 70s.

Two bigger errors, which moved me down the list a bit. But there were two MPs and 4 DNFs too at that point.

Start-1
Found the trail heading south and started up the one towards the out-of-bounds (native American settlement) hoping to contour above the mapped green but decided I couldn't go that way and turned back, for a small time loss. Went up the wash instead.

Getting out of the wash is mapped as light green but it was worse, thicker and prickly, and extended farther up the reentrant sides than mapped. Eventually got to a relatively open area and moved along to 2.

Did fine the rest of the way to 2 and 3. On the leg to 3 I saw a jackrabbit (I saw one yesterday too), and an unusual bird which was just sitting on a rock. It might have been a roadrunner but I'll need to see what size their bodies are and what they look like when resting. EDIT: it *was* a roadrunner...first wild sighting of one! Its crest was flattened which made it harder to identify.

3-4
Had "runnable" terrain 2/3 of the way there, then terrain didn't match what I was expecting and I saw a wash bend to my left when I expected one to the right. So I dropped to the wash and determined I was too far left and was looking at another wash bend where the wash is wider. Found it from there. This was when I realized that the north lines were at an angle to the sides of the paper (but the control numbers were not), which might explain why terrain didn't appear as i expected it to.

Fine to 5-6. But then I got over-confident about moving through this terrain.

6-7
Attempted to do this leg on a bearing, but I was pushed around by rocks and vegetation more than I thought and I ended up too far to the right of the line and checked up a reentrant well beyond the control. Eventually turned south to relocate. Didn't have to go all the way to the trail because I started seeing people and then a flag, which was mine.

The rest went well but slowly for the most part because of the rocks and vegetation. Somewhere in the last section I hit a prickly pear which left some spines above my left ankle, but not too many and they didn't irritate much so I left them there until I finished.

I had the only key to the car so was happy to see Glen wasn't back from his red course yet (and mad at me for being locked out) when I finished, considering the extra time I'd taken on 4 and 7 (at least 8 minutes between the two, maybe more).

Brown - Splits

Event: Southwest Spring Week 2020
 

Javelina Hustle at Box Canyon (Coronado Nat'l Forest in Santa Rita Mtns). Temps in 50s; 60 when we finished. (Time per my watch was a minute shorter.)

Mass start race (short--5.68km; or long--close to 10km) with a window (controls 3-4-5, which I visited 5-3-4), a skip (8-10-11; vs 8-9-11), and a Line O section near the end where we needed to find three controls to punch before finishing. Fun format!

I either navigated well or had people to help on most controls. Missed 8 slightly to the left and looked around on the wrong part of the spur before correcting. If I'd turned right instead of left when I hit the first batch of trees I'd have been there.

Wanted to get away from a group on the leg from 4-6 so I left 4 going farther east along the spur before dropping down the hillside, but they dropped me instead. First plan for the second 2/3 of the leg was to contour around the hill and use a trail, but since on the trail you still climbed over the hill I took the more direct route closer to the beeline. The other way would have saved 4 contours but added a bit of distance (maybe 400-500m? ... I measured it--It was about a 1275m leg near the beeline; 1650 the other way.). Both had good attackpoints.

SHORT - Splits

Organ Pipe Cactus NM trail toward he Double Arch. We went partway up the scramble but it seemed much farther than advertised (and a lot of loose rock on the trail) so we turned back. Forgot to turn watch on at parking to start.

Stopped not too far down the trail to watch (and try to photograph) a phainopepla. On the way back saw a thrasher sitting atop a saguaro. Heard more birds than we saw.

Partly sunny, high 60s