Race Evaluation
Colorado 5-Day: US Night-O Champs: Red
jjcote
| 1. | The hatlamp was tuned up and working perfectly, so I felt goodstarting out. First leg looked tricky, so I decided to take it in short steps. Ran to the end of the open area, then carefully started up through the woods. Immediately ran into trouble because I couldn't figure out the contours. On the spur 120 m W of the control I caught Steve Gregg, who had started 2 minutes before me. I looked down into the reentrant and spotted a control on a dead tree, which I quickly found on the map. Great. Headed off toward the control, but was too far left, andhit the reentrant on the NE edge of the circle. Looked around at the ridge, and wondered if I was one spur too far south. Headed north through the reentrant, but hit the fence, and realized I had been right in the first place. Went back to the dead tree, and attacked properly. Heard someone came in behind me, who turned out to be Mats Winstedt, who styarted 4 mintes after me. He ultimately had the best time on Red, 4 minutes faster than me, which means that this error on the first control as the difference between me and first place. | ||||||
| 2. | ENE up the spur, with Mats right behind me. When we got to the top, he contoured higher to the left, while I dropped down to the trail and started scanning up the hillside when the trail started to bend. Lit up the reflector from the trail,a nd got there ahead of Mats and some others. Considered turning off my lamp to disappear, but it was too dark in the woods and I would have tripped over something. | ||||||
| 3. | Surprised taht Mats was not moving much faster than me. He ran up along the fence, I was a little lower, contouring and just looking for the second reentrant. Ran down the second reentrant, then over the spur into the bigger renntrant, and was looking for a smaller spur at first. Spotted the fence, and looked in the right direction to light up the control. Just before this, I think I heard Mats mutter something that sounded like he was unhappy or confused. Didn't see him again for a long time after this, and wondered if he lost time here. | ||||||
| 4. | Out to the trail, and followed it W for a bit to avoid what looked like rough woods. Cut through to the next trail, and left it at the bend into the semi-open. Went to high-beam to try and spot the white woods up ahead, but didn't see anything convincing, so I decided to bail south to the trail. While doing so, I kept looking around and lit up the control. Heard some footsteps coming a way behind me. | ||||||
| 5. | Just hightailed it SSE, figuring I'd get caught by the fence and road, so I didn't bother to count reentrants or anything. When I got to the road, I turned left and figured I'd play it safe by going to the place where the road crossed the second fence, although I thought it was weird that the road crossed back and forth over the fence. Fortunately, I was also paying attention to the contours on the south side of the road, si I stopped at about the right place. At that point I realized taht the second fence was really a power liner, and after scanning the skies for several seconds, I spotted the dinky telephone wires. No problem attacking from there, although he terrain looked mighty open for white woods. | ||||||
| 6. | Navigated to the reentrant no prob, but was disappointed to see no control. Read the clues and saw that I was looking for a saddle, and then realized that the bunch of people milling around nearby were in the saddle. | ||||||
| 7. | Over the first ridge, then on the second one and caught several people, one of whom took a fall. Another one asked if s/he as okay (yes), then made a comment about just rolling in a fall like that to avoid injury. Got to the control ahead of them. | ||||||
| 8. | Up the ridge to the north, but then got into the broad reentrant beyond it and had to come back. Somebody fast-looking (Mats?) went through just ahead of me. | ||||||
| 9. | Could see the fast person ahead of me, fading into the distance. Hit the road at what looked like a fence junction o the map, but which was actually a fence and a ride. The ride made for good running to the trail, and an easy attack from there. | ||||||
| 10. | Straight to the trail junction, same time as somebody with a bright light, but who I easily outran on the trail. Easy attack, and coming into the reentrant, I fell as I was approaching the control and rolled past it. Somebody behind me made a commnet to the effect that I looked pretty stylin' as I did that. | ||||||
| 11. | Went to high-beam for thr reat of the run (as opposed to just on control approaches) because I had no concerns about running out of juice. Just blasted in the right direction, ignoring trails, figuring on getting caught by the fence, then going almost to the lake. That worked fine, and as I got close, somebodty behind me (Fritz?) said "Hup!", at which pointy I swung my lamp around and spotted the control a few steps to my right. Mats arrived just ahead of me, from the NE, I think. | ||||||
| F. | Just steps behind Mats on the run in across the bridge. A great run! |
Total Time Lost - 00:00:00