Training Log Archive: mayer22

Relay O
I did a quick first short tricky leg in bike shoes. Julia (short easy leg) and Earl (tricky steep leg) changed shoes to do the next two legs. I changed into shoes for the last somewhat tricky leg. The two short legs were only 800m. The two longer legs were about 1300m.

Started just before daybreak. We grabbed some extra water for the ride to the finish then climbed to Woodstock tower. Then grabbed points just off the road/trail back to the finish. One required a 250ft climb through laurel.

The trails at Elizabeth Furnace we thought might be difficult weren't too bad making for almost 6 mi of good single track riding with a fun 500ft descent.

Event: Massanutten Massacre
 

Massanutten Massacre with Earl and Julia.
Weather was great and the course was fun, interesting, and completely linear. There were almost 100 racers. We were the only team to clear the course. Jesse was close missing only the one CP that gave us trouble too. I felt pretty good. Think my calf was great after the massage work on Friday. Felt a little overworked at the end of the first trek but was in helper mode the rest of the time.

Linear trek along the mountain ridge. Steady up and then steady down.
At one CP hinted as boulder field we found Mark's Caution flagging for the CP in a large boulder field but no control. Searched a little more and found the CP on a small rock pile 100m W surrounded by laurel. Attacked from above and met Odyssey attacking from below at the same time.

Got excited and attacked the next CP too early. Thought we were approaching a saddle but it was just the trail entering a flat spot of the reentrant. Should have paid more attention to the map and confirmed before attacking. Got to see Odyssey at the point attacking from different directions again though.

On our rocky descent, we were impressed by a group of 4-5 kids followed by their dad pushing their bikes (most not real MTB) up the hill. They weren't even halfway and the kids were asking if it got better. Gave them the bad news. Super impressed by their character though.

Bike to paddle put in.
Started with KOM climb and then big downhill to TA.

Boat was tippy and hard to turn. Earl and Julia did a great job of reading the water though and we didn't have to get out and push over any ledges.

1 CP was in on an island in the middle of a fishing pond alongside the river. Our collegiate swimmer Julia got it for us and came back covered in grass.

Second trek.
Forgot the passport in my old shorts at TA. Luckily realized it in the first 300m. Basically climbed the ridge, ran along it, and then descended. Collected several point off the trail along the way. Contour lines along the ridge were hard to read making it hard to know exactly where on the ridge we were.

Finished just before dark. Earl was starting to have trouble keeping his energy up.

Most of the points were within 200m of the trail. One required a 300ft off bike climb. Another required a swim to an island, which Julia did again.

Surprisingly the climb to the ridge was mostly rideable except for maybe the last km. Additionally, we had to mostly walk the first km along the ridge.

We had trouble with one CP that took us probably close to 3 hours to find. First off we didn't have a bike odometer. This would have been helpful along the ridge. We started a quick search about 1 km early. Fortunately, a short course team coming up behind us did and helped us get closer to the approximate location of the hillside CP. We got to the right hilltop before the CP but when we tried to attack I was using the scale from a previous map and getting too short a distance. In addition, the dropoff from the hilltop was in actuality 80ft but the map was only showing one 32ft contour line.
We searched a 250m stretch of hillside up to the point until we realized where we were. Even then it didn't quite seem right but then finally pieced together our mistakes which made it logical.

The one benefit to hanging around for so long was Earl rejuvenated a lot.

Massage with Chris. He spent some extra time at the end digging into my calf. Think he got all the tension and tenderness out. We'll see how long it lasts.

Mapping Pandapas Central

Everything but legs

Everything