CNYO Snowgaine - Day 1
Brookfield Horse Trails
This is one of the coolest events around but when winter fizzled out, I stopped thinking about it. Luckily, Harps kicked our butts into gear and shamed us into going down to Hubbardsville, New York for a tough weekend of training that was heaps of fun, even without skiing or snowshoeing.
Knowing we would only have about 15 minutes to plan the first of two 8-hour days on the same rogaine-style race course, I decided to focus on one of the two maps and just try to get everything. In the past, we and some friends have regretted omitting far flung CPs on Day 1.
Since we cleared the course in our most recent Snowgaine, it wasn't a totally crazy strategy. I would have time to make a real plan for Day 2 and if the course *was* clearable, I wouldn't have shot myself in the foot. (Spoiler alert: The course wasn't clearable for us and I *did* shoot myself in the foot by not dropping one or two lower value controls on Day 1.)
We missed the start by a minute, then 'Bent and I only made it a short distance before stopping to fix his bladder hose. He couldn't get it to work so we would need to drink from one bladder all day. We started running again, then decided that was crazy. We were only a few hundred meters from the car where I had a spare bladder. So our 2nd start was almost 13 minutes behind the real start. :( It was a long time before we spotted anyone else.
There was a thin layer of snow in many places, lots of bare ground and mud, some chilly slush puddles and occasional ice patches. The most challenging surfaces were the horse trails - partially frozen churned mud with deep, irregular, ankle-twisting horse tracks and a delicate, breakable crust. The hills, forests, streams and fields were beautiful with some big blowdowns and nasty thorny areas that caused some good scratches.
I planned our route and did most of the nav; 'Bent towed me on most of the road sections and kept a second pair of eyes on the map and control descriptions. We had a fun day after the stress of the Great Bladder Incident wore off. We saw JayXC and LC more than any other team. They had picked up 65 and lost one of their maps before embarking on a similar route to ours.
For future reference:
15-58-22-31-62-43.
Road run to the 2nd big group of controls.
61-17 (which I should have dropped like Arthurd did), 26, 55.
Run to 3rd control group.
45-23-18-24-36-Run-63
Run - some confusion about roads on private property. Got worried and moved north to a different trail.
47-tired of thorns so changed plans to 21-34-52-30.
Run-54. Unfortunately, we'd asked about the trail leading through private land to 49 and were told it wasn't an official horse trail, i.e. not legal but we "probably wouldn't get caught". So we shouldn't have asked because otherwise I would have taken it because it looked like every other horse trail!
Time was getting tight so we got 38-27 but skipped 49-29, the only controls we missed in our plan. We could have got 49 if we hadn't started 13 minutes late - boo. I probably wouldn't have had the guts to go for 29 regardless since it was a hilly 7 km run to the finish.
I felt pretty good all day. I've been training for a long, mountainous run in late June and I noticed the benefit of the extra strength training. I'll never be a running star but it was encouraging to feel relatively energetic and durable.
Running Free cleared the entire west/south map on Day 1 - wow! The Canadians all joined Arthurd's team (with her junior world rogaining champion teammate!) for a fun Mexican food celebration at La Iguana restaurant in Hamilton.