Race Evaluation
30th Annual Billygoat Run: The Goat
jjcote
| 1. | This run was with Stephen Koehler (age 11) the whole way, going for his second Billygoat shirt. Went with the left-hand crowd, the slightly higher route, though everyone merged at the trail, and we were just train passengers up the hill to the control. | ||||||
| 2. | I had forgotten to give Stephen his ration of fruit roll-ups at the first control, so I pulled them out of my pocket on this leg, and was fiddling with the package when... | ||||||
| 3. | ...Stephen took off like a shot down the hill, too fast for me to keep up with my hands busy, and I wondered if he'd just find a better ride and I wouldn't see him until the finish. We regrouped on the trail, though, and he was doing great, cutting corners and making good time, until we got to the climb over the ridge. Which we probably should have avoided by either going around the tip of the spur by the marsh, or my taking the totally left-side route. But we climbed up, and clambered down through the rocks and laurel, and then climbed up again. Stephen was starting to fade a bit on the climbs, pretty early in the race, and I had by this time already decided that we would skip #18. Saw Will Hawkins cruise by just behind us on his way to #7. | ||||||
| 4. | Had to climb up a little bit to get around some green, while others went lower. | ||||||
| 5. | I gave Stephen a Gu at the beginning of this leg and he handed the sticky packet back to me at the top. Much nastier green in here than the map indicated, but we picked out way through it to the hilltop. Charlie, off to our right, asked if we were on a different route to #5, or if we were skipping it. Wasn't sure what he meant, as we were just arriving at the hill above the W side of the N swamp, and were right on track. Turned out he was confused and made an error here that meant we didn't see him for a long time. I was initially confused as well, thinking that #5 was on an uphill slope, but the I straighened my brain out and we were able to spike it. | ||||||
| 6. | Easy short leg. A woman (Sandy Schreyer, I think) came up as a bunch of us were heading out of #6, asking if were were looking for #5, and we pointed her the right way. | ||||||
| 7. | Saw Dean Sturtevant on his way to #5 cross our path. We were with a group of about a half-dozen in here, and I made a small mistake that took us slightly to the right of #7, but it was easy enough to correct, especially since we could see other people heading for the control. | ||||||
| 8. | We were at the back of our little pack by this point (with Barb Bryant, Valerie Doverov, Jim Henderson, George Walker, and some others). Went low and skirted the edge of the marsh, and went slowly up the hill to the control, losing sight of all of those guys for good. | ||||||
| 9. | Saw Peter Gagarin on his way to #13. had a tricky time getting down one cliff just before the control. | ||||||
| 10. | Stayed low on the hillside, using an ancient unmapped trail and contouring pretty much the whole way. Accidentally dropped one of the fruit roll-up things on this leg, one that I had just opened. | ||||||
| 11. | I really had to start giving Stephen pep talks at this point, but that was combined with talking to him about what we'd be seeing up ahead. | ||||||
| 12. | Uphill, but I assured him that we'd soon have a lot of downhill coming. | ||||||
| 13. | I sent Stephen out in front for the long trail run on the ridge, so that he could set the pace, and he did very well. When we cut off to cross the trail and stream to go to the control, I encouraged him to wade through the water instead of hopping across, and he agreed that it felt good. I was a smidge uncrtain of our position when we got to the circle, but then I saw Dean below us, and it looked like he had just punched, so we went down and found the control. I was surprised that he had caught up to us, but it turned out that he had skipped 10, 11, and 12. Steve Tarry also arrived right behind us and commented that this was a tough course and that it was going to be close for all of us in terms of time. | ||||||
| 14. | Trails to the SE of both lakes. Stephen commented that the winner was probably already done, just as William Hawkins ran by and said, "Yes, I am" (on his way back from retrieving his glasses from the control where he had left them in the rain). We passed Steve Templeton, who was limong badly, and gave him some words of encouragement (if he had finished, he would have broken Jeff Schapiro's record for longest gap between finishes, as he got his last shirt in 1987!). Got great encouragement from the crew at the split point, noting that we were on target to finish within the time limit. Stephen ate a bunch of stuff, and I refilled by bottle with sports drink to get us through the final loop. | ||||||
| 15. | Approached #15 from above and had no trouble. | ||||||
| 16. | I commented that this was going to be a tricky navigational leg, and I was right. Drifted left (uphill) and realized it when I hit the trail. Wasn't positive that I knew what I had done, but decided to go downhill anyway, and got a little to the right, looking one reentrant too far to the NW, just outside the circle. Charlie, Rhonda, and company showed up here, and gave me the hint that allowed me to find the control. | ||||||
| 17. | Everybody get ahead of us: Charlie, Rhonda, Ed Despard, Peter Goodwin, and (I think) Glen Malings. | ||||||
| 18. | Skip! Might as well not do the climb, since that was Stephen's weak point. | ||||||
| 19. | The low point of the course. We got to the little trail, and were heading NW to the larger trail, when I looked back and could see from Stephen's face that he was on the verge of tears. I stopped, gave him a hug, plyed him with candy and drinks, and said that as long as we kept moving we'd be okay, and we could go as fast or slow as he liked. He had commented earlier about his feet hurting all over, and now his main concern seemed to be his ankle. The smooth trail helped his spirits, and he wasn't doing too badly when we dropped down to the control. | ||||||
| 20. | I gave Stephen the choice of going back up to the trail or straight through the woods, and he picked the woods. He was struggling a little on the final climb, but I assured him that that was the last of it. | ||||||
| 21. | Nice easy trail leg was welcome. | ||||||
| 22. | Went SSW to get to the big trail, picking it up at the rough open area, and we clearly had ample time to get to the finish. | ||||||
| F. | After punching, Stephen summoned up everything that he had in reserve and bolted for the finish line at a full sprint. I had anticipated this, and made sure that I wasn't carrying the bottle in my punching hand so that I wouldn't have to fumble at the finish line. Ittook a serious effort to keep up with that little guy, and we finished dead even. An awesome performance on a tough course, especially for somebody who weighs in at only 0.46 G! |
Total Time Lost - 00:00:00