1. | Off with the pack, a little left w/ JJ - dropped to trail and briefly considered staying on trail and crossing S of marsh, but decided to go with the pack for safety. | ||||||
2. | went with the flow, used the time to peruse the whole course - initially thought 5 looked promising, also considered skipping 10 and running the ridge to Norrotuck and dropping down to 11 | ||||||
3. | moving with the crowd, right behind Pam James and David Onkst | ||||||
4. | looking up the hill, considered skipping the climb and going around to 5 - thought about going west to trail and up on trail, but decided to hang with the pack for safety | ||||||
5. | had been in good contact with my map for the most part so far, but had difficulty in rocky footing heading down to 5 and was definitely out of contact - and also loosing my train - pushed hard to stay with them at least to the flag - successfully with only minor bruises from falling down | ||||||
6. | clean, J-J appeared right behind heading up the slopes. | ||||||
7. | feeling pretty good with a good string of people out in front - decided at that point to push hard and maintain contact with both the map and the train at least until 11 - once past the long legs I could skip 14 and navigate on my own | ||||||
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11. | it was a haul, but I managed to keep in contact with the Ruutopold, James, Onkst et al train almost all the way - lost them on the last climb to saddle SW of 11 but I was in safe territory now... whew.. | ||||||
12. | next 2 controls w/ Mikell Conradi - more or less. | ||||||
13. | |||||||
14. | SKIP - I knew the terrain from 13 to 15 was clean underfoot and no major climb meant I could motor at a good pace - which I did | ||||||
15. | +01:00 | good contact and ground speed all the way until I crossed the road and brook - lots of downed hemlock on my route up the hillside so I skirted below and wound up on knoll 4 lines downhill from 15 - but knew immediately where I was and climbed up to 15 - Peter G was leaving as I gained the upper part of that hill. Started to grab some water, Nevin French came in and looking uphill I saw a major crowd in the distance - left 15 in a hurry to get a gap on the pack | |||||
16. | flew downhill praying I was running straight enough to hit pond just N of footbridge. Nevin with me but the crowd back a ways | ||||||
17. | turning the corner near the finish, Nevin was about 100m ahead, but more encouraging was Peter about 200m just ditching into the woods - turned up the speed a bit. | ||||||
18. | caught Peter and Nevin crossing the stream, then with both of them most of the way to 18 - but saw flag and sprinted the cleanest line to the flag first. Mihai moving very slowly toward 18 from the direction of 19 | ||||||
19. | +00:30 | opted to skirt the hill to the right to save climb (cramping) Peter & Nevin went slightly left - both beat me in handily | |||||
20. | no sign of Nevin, but closing the gap on Peter, punching right behind him | ||||||
F. | tried to overtake Peter too late in the chute - about one step behind him. A very good run for me - no major mistakes, good energy throughout, a good choice of skip and well executed |
Total Time Lost - 00:01:30