Training Log Archive: syd

Event: Green Corn Moon Rogaine
 

Green Corn Moon Rogaine

Arrived at Great Seal State Park Saturday afternoon and set up our tent at the campground. It was hot, close to 90 F, and very humid. Relaxed for a bit and then headed over to the race shelter just after 4 p.m. to check-in and pick up our maps. The layout of the CPs made planning pretty easy. I decided to head S first, grab all the S points in a CW loop and then finish up with the N points in a CCW loop. It looked like I would be able to clear, even including a decent time buffer for potential errors.

Race started at 6:00 p.m. and I headed off up the hill. I cut in to 63, arrived at where I thought the flag should be, and didn’t see anything. The RDs had said some of the flags were in thick areas to increase the difficulty, so I hunted around in the bushes for a few minutes before finally spotting the flag in a nice open area just past where I was looking. I then headed straight through to 74 and there were so many spiders. They were HUGE. I had spider webs everywhere. I am irrationally afraid of spiders, so it was not an enjoyable experience. After a while I decided to hold a stick in front of me to knock down the webs and it worked great! So for the next five hours I carried a stick whenever I was in thick areas :)

I hit the water stop shortly after starting and decided that I didn’t need to refill yet. Made it to 70 with no trouble. Hesitated a lot down the reentrant to 44, not sure why. Mistake on 42. There were some new mountain bike trails in that area that weren’t mapped and I wasn’t paying close attention to the reentrants I was passing. Hit a major trail and climbed up to figure out where I was before heading back down to the flag. The next few went well and then I had a big error on 82 (pretty sure the flag was misplaced). I took a bearing from 56, pace counted and ended up in a reentrant that was the right shape/direction. Mark was there too, which seemed like a good sign. No flag, though. Wandered around for a while before going back to the trail. Sat down, put on my light, and decided to go a little further down the trail and check one more reentrant. And there was the flag. Lost about 15 min there. The rest of the S section went well. It got dark around 64, which actually made the flags a lot easier to find.

Made it back to the water stop at 3:40. The rest of my route had a lot of trails, so I was on track to clear. Refilled my bladder and then headed back N. No problem on 50. I was too high on the way to 81. I hit my pace count and didn’t see a reentrant, so headed downhill and spotted the flag. 31 was right next to the trail. 43 was plotted on the trail, but I trudged all the way up that massive hill and didn’t see it. I actually thought someone might have stolen it since it was on the trail, but just in case I headed back down a bit and scanned the woods for a reflector. Spotted it way around the side of the hill. Whew. 62 felt like it took forever, but I hit it right on, and that was the last tricky flag. I made my way to 52, out to the campground loop and then I had a road run to grab the last 2 flags and head to the finish.

I did a very good job drinking and eating. Felt good physically the whole race. Those hills were so steep! O pants get a thumbs up for short rogaines with minimal thorns.

Cleared in 5:14. Finished 1st OA! My first solo win at a rogaine :)

C • Congrats on the overall win!!!!! 4

Finished 8 routes, 1 V3-V5. Spent more time playing around on routes I didn't finish. I miss top-roping.

Legs took a while to warm up, but felt pretty good after the first mile.

Easy run on the trail after an evening of removing wallpaper. House renovations are coming along well.

The full white loop at South Park - in reverse. The hills didn't seem as bad in this direction.