I had a request to upload the mapped locations of CP10, CP11, and CP12 - these are the locations. I did not draw in our course as we basically went straight to them.
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
More Howl Maps
I had a request to upload the mapped locations of CP10, CP11, and CP12 - these are the locations. I did not draw in our course as we basically went straight to them.
Monday, October 22, 2007
Sunday, October 21, 2007
Howl at the Moon 2007
Team Travel Country Outdoors – Ron Eaglin, Melissa Watson, Jim Levine, Greg Corbitt
(maps to come in next post)
An annual favorite race of mine is the Howl at the Moon, a night race that brings about a new challenge dealing with darkness and sometimes cold in a sprint (12-18 hours) format. This year was no different as 41 teams lined up to receive the maps on a Saturday afternoon. It did not take long for Melissa and me to plot the 7 Orienteering points and 4 waypoints of the first half of the course and get a chance to plan and relax before the 3 PM start.
We would start with a quick run of about a mile before swimming across the Withlacoochee River near the mouth of the Suwannee and get started on the first 15-20 mile trek leg of the course. The swim was a wonderful start (clear cool water)– ensuring all teams would have wet shoes as we got started on the long run of this first leg. The lead teams immediately got off to a bad start after the swim taking a double track road that was only partially mapped, and completely bypassing OP1. About ½ mile into this run I realized we were heading the wrong way as we should have been on a west head trail along the river and the double track made no signs of going any direction other than north. We bushwhacked west to the river, found the correct trail and took an attack towards the control. The limestone caves in the area of the control seemed like too good of a location to pass up and Melissa quickly found it and we were on our way to OP2 with one other team (2 PM) running along with us.
We came back to the double track road and headed northeast bushwhacking to the Orange blazed trail meeting it exactly where we expected. OP2 was right on the trail and we did not even need to slow down as we punched OP2. From there it was a trail run to the attack point for OP3. We were clipping nicely along and a distinct stream bend was going to supply a good attack point for OP3. Team “Semper Go” (which is Coast Guard – not Marines) arrived at OP3 area at the same time. Our team still had too much energy, instead of aligning the attack point and spreading the team as we had done hundred of times before – we all dissolved into 4 individuals looking independently for the control. After wasting 20 minutes we met back at the river, regrouped, located our attack point, took our bearing, set up a search pattern and found the control 5 minutes later. The 20 minutes of wasted time did allow a few teams to catch up, though they were still locating the control as we were heading out. Semper Go had been with us on the original attack and as we left I saw them and told them to use our original attack – which had been correct before we bailed on it. It was the same attack that had been successful the second time.
From here we knew we had a solid 8 mile run to OP4 – with a lot of navigation choices. We were going to try one that looked to be risky – but would cut miles from our run. After crossing the river peninsula north of OP6 (a paddle control) we located a good crossing spot and swam the river. The trail networks north of the river appeared to require either going 2-3 miles out of the way to the north or making long bushwhacks (though there were likely plenty of trails). The roads south of the river were straight, would be runnable, and also went in the direction we wanted. A path on the south side of the river took us out at the intersection of 10th Ter and 14th Ter – so we paralleled the river on the road, then took 8th Pl. to the dead-end and bushwhacked to the Highway 249 bridge. As we crossed the bridge a local informed us that there were other folks dressed like us (we were pretty distinct running along in our packs carrying paddles) running towards the bridge from the South.
After crossing the bridge it was pretty easy to simply follow the roads to the Holton Creek area where we used the road numbers and the Holton Creek map to ensure our approach to OP4. We wanted to hit OP4 in daylight and it looked like we would do this and be on the river with a little bit of light to spare. The trail (blue trail) intersection and road bend gave us a pretty good attack point going towards OP4. The large number of sinkholes made keeping our bearing a challenge – but we pretty much hit it dead on. Since we had located all trek OP’s with light we rewarded ourselves with about 10 minutes of walking (out to the road heading southeast) before dropping back into a run. Jim had been having some knee problems and was running with a strong limp – though he still was keeping a good pace. We arrived at the boats (overshooting it a little as we were joking and not paying real close attention), filled our bladders, portaged our boats to the river down steps that were obviously not made for people portaging boats and hit the water. Semper Go arrived as we were in the transition and would hit the water just a few minutes behind us.
We took it pretty easy on the paddle at first. I was using a canoe paddle, while everyone else had kayak paddles (just a logistics oversight). The downstream current was swift and we had a huge backstop just before OP5 – the highway 249 bridge. Semper Go caught up with us along this stretch, and we found the entrance to the Alapaha River together and located the CP quickly. The Alapaha River water was quite shallow and the there appeared to be no flow in the river – but it was a nice diversion. It took us just over one hour to paddle from the put-in to OP5.
The next leg to OP6 was relatively straight (literally). The minimal bends in the river made travel along this section quite fast – just hunker down and paddle. Semper Go used this section and some hard paddling to put some distance on us, but I kept our team to our race plan which was a strong, medium speed paddle. OP7 was a very easy find on the 180 degree bend and we kept the pace as we passed the take-out and headed for OP8. We chatted a little bit with Elias as we went by, telling him one plan we had considered was taking out here, trekking to OP7, and then simply heading back to the TA – though I knew his intention was to have teams paddle to OP7. We did this and as we made the turn into the Withlacoochee River we noted that Semper Go had ditched the boat at this entrance opting to run to OP7. Unfortunately for them they had plotted the control on the east side of the river (it was correctly plotted on the west side) and the steep cliffs in the area near the control made getting to the control challenging. We reached OP7 where they were searching for the control – and they were able to use our lights to hone in on it, though the cliffs and the required swim across the river for them would still make it challenging.
We boogied back downriver, now passing other teams near the end of the Withlacoochee. Semper Go’s boat was still on the shore – though I knew they would not be more than 5 minutes behind us. All the other teams were a solid 3 km of paddling back of us.
We were slow getting our boats out at the take-out (stiff legs and all). Semper Go arrived, racked the boat and we headed out the trek to the TA together. They opted to risk a fire road for a more direct route to the old railroad bridge, while we took the park road to US90, a long but easier route. We were slowed a bit as Jim’s knee was really hurting – so our running pace had slowed quite a bit. Melissa had a brace at the TA – which would help Jim.
At the TA we would need to mark maps, and then head out. I was feeling very sluggish at this point and took a little too long after marking maps to get myself moving onto the bike. Semper Go left 13 minutes ahead of us on the bike leg, but I wanted to use the time to ensure a clean navigation when we were out there. Our original race plan had been for Melissa to navigate this leg, but our early success in team navigation made us change the plan – I would do primary navigation, while Melissa would keep track of distances. This worked quite well as we had no trouble finding CP9 and then CP8. From CP8 the road network leading out to 16th Ave seemed to me to be a little off – but staying to the roads leading west I knew would eventually get us to road. We hit it – took an odometer reading and then moved fast to the entrance to OP10 which had a strong backdrop (power lines) at the entrance. We planned to take the best road possible to OP10 – and made some good choices in here, catching Semper Go and putting us back in the lead as we backtracked out to 16th Ave.
I calculated the distance from the OP10 entrance to the OP11/12 entrance at 4 km by simply looking at the UTM grid and subtracting 59 – 55. (look at the N/S grids on the map). We laid into this leg and sure enough the entrance was clearly marked and at 4.1 km. Semper Go had opted to get OP11 first, so we headed for OP12. I had noticed 2 trails heading north off the main road and wanted to be completely sure we took the correct one. For some reason the map had me confused at this choice – so Melissa and I talked it out and decided to take the eastern most choice (which was correct). Looking at the maps today it seems obvious – but at 1 AM, shivering, in the dark, in the woods – nothing seems obvious. This road turned out to be pretty much the worst of all the roads in this leg; rooted, angled, sandy, with logs and water. We chunked along and Semper Go passed us going the other way heading out. By now we were pretty used to seeing each other. The control was right on the money – so it was now simply a matter of heading back out and sprinting home (I did briefly consider using the other trail out – though bailed on that idea).
Once we hit 16th Ave it was a pure sprint north to US 90 and into the TA. Jim was feeling pretty good as he kept dropping us on the bike line – though the line was not terribly effective on the sandy road. Melissa took the line as we turned onto 90 accepting the challenge to bring the pace up to 21 mph (which she did) and we finished a scant 5 minutes behind Semper Go after 11 and ½ hours of racing. We all congratulated each other – we had pushed each other the entire race and had still made it fun. It was fun watching teams heading out onto the bike leg (and later coming back in) especially from a lawn chair by the fire.
Congratulations to everyone who came out and finished this spectacular course. The terrain and scenery were some of the best. The level of challenge of the course was just right Based on the fact that nearly all teams finished in the 18 hour time limit. Good job to Elias and Gomez who once again set a winner of a course with an excellent design and great challenges.
(maps to come in next post)
An annual favorite race of mine is the Howl at the Moon, a night race that brings about a new challenge dealing with darkness and sometimes cold in a sprint (12-18 hours) format. This year was no different as 41 teams lined up to receive the maps on a Saturday afternoon. It did not take long for Melissa and me to plot the 7 Orienteering points and 4 waypoints of the first half of the course and get a chance to plan and relax before the 3 PM start.
We would start with a quick run of about a mile before swimming across the Withlacoochee River near the mouth of the Suwannee and get started on the first 15-20 mile trek leg of the course. The swim was a wonderful start (clear cool water)– ensuring all teams would have wet shoes as we got started on the long run of this first leg. The lead teams immediately got off to a bad start after the swim taking a double track road that was only partially mapped, and completely bypassing OP1. About ½ mile into this run I realized we were heading the wrong way as we should have been on a west head trail along the river and the double track made no signs of going any direction other than north. We bushwhacked west to the river, found the correct trail and took an attack towards the control. The limestone caves in the area of the control seemed like too good of a location to pass up and Melissa quickly found it and we were on our way to OP2 with one other team (2 PM) running along with us.
We came back to the double track road and headed northeast bushwhacking to the Orange blazed trail meeting it exactly where we expected. OP2 was right on the trail and we did not even need to slow down as we punched OP2. From there it was a trail run to the attack point for OP3. We were clipping nicely along and a distinct stream bend was going to supply a good attack point for OP3. Team “Semper Go” (which is Coast Guard – not Marines) arrived at OP3 area at the same time. Our team still had too much energy, instead of aligning the attack point and spreading the team as we had done hundred of times before – we all dissolved into 4 individuals looking independently for the control. After wasting 20 minutes we met back at the river, regrouped, located our attack point, took our bearing, set up a search pattern and found the control 5 minutes later. The 20 minutes of wasted time did allow a few teams to catch up, though they were still locating the control as we were heading out. Semper Go had been with us on the original attack and as we left I saw them and told them to use our original attack – which had been correct before we bailed on it. It was the same attack that had been successful the second time.
From here we knew we had a solid 8 mile run to OP4 – with a lot of navigation choices. We were going to try one that looked to be risky – but would cut miles from our run. After crossing the river peninsula north of OP6 (a paddle control) we located a good crossing spot and swam the river. The trail networks north of the river appeared to require either going 2-3 miles out of the way to the north or making long bushwhacks (though there were likely plenty of trails). The roads south of the river were straight, would be runnable, and also went in the direction we wanted. A path on the south side of the river took us out at the intersection of 10th Ter and 14th Ter – so we paralleled the river on the road, then took 8th Pl. to the dead-end and bushwhacked to the Highway 249 bridge. As we crossed the bridge a local informed us that there were other folks dressed like us (we were pretty distinct running along in our packs carrying paddles) running towards the bridge from the South.
After crossing the bridge it was pretty easy to simply follow the roads to the Holton Creek area where we used the road numbers and the Holton Creek map to ensure our approach to OP4. We wanted to hit OP4 in daylight and it looked like we would do this and be on the river with a little bit of light to spare. The trail (blue trail) intersection and road bend gave us a pretty good attack point going towards OP4. The large number of sinkholes made keeping our bearing a challenge – but we pretty much hit it dead on. Since we had located all trek OP’s with light we rewarded ourselves with about 10 minutes of walking (out to the road heading southeast) before dropping back into a run. Jim had been having some knee problems and was running with a strong limp – though he still was keeping a good pace. We arrived at the boats (overshooting it a little as we were joking and not paying real close attention), filled our bladders, portaged our boats to the river down steps that were obviously not made for people portaging boats and hit the water. Semper Go arrived as we were in the transition and would hit the water just a few minutes behind us.
We took it pretty easy on the paddle at first. I was using a canoe paddle, while everyone else had kayak paddles (just a logistics oversight). The downstream current was swift and we had a huge backstop just before OP5 – the highway 249 bridge. Semper Go caught up with us along this stretch, and we found the entrance to the Alapaha River together and located the CP quickly. The Alapaha River water was quite shallow and the there appeared to be no flow in the river – but it was a nice diversion. It took us just over one hour to paddle from the put-in to OP5.
The next leg to OP6 was relatively straight (literally). The minimal bends in the river made travel along this section quite fast – just hunker down and paddle. Semper Go used this section and some hard paddling to put some distance on us, but I kept our team to our race plan which was a strong, medium speed paddle. OP7 was a very easy find on the 180 degree bend and we kept the pace as we passed the take-out and headed for OP8. We chatted a little bit with Elias as we went by, telling him one plan we had considered was taking out here, trekking to OP7, and then simply heading back to the TA – though I knew his intention was to have teams paddle to OP7. We did this and as we made the turn into the Withlacoochee River we noted that Semper Go had ditched the boat at this entrance opting to run to OP7. Unfortunately for them they had plotted the control on the east side of the river (it was correctly plotted on the west side) and the steep cliffs in the area near the control made getting to the control challenging. We reached OP7 where they were searching for the control – and they were able to use our lights to hone in on it, though the cliffs and the required swim across the river for them would still make it challenging.
We boogied back downriver, now passing other teams near the end of the Withlacoochee. Semper Go’s boat was still on the shore – though I knew they would not be more than 5 minutes behind us. All the other teams were a solid 3 km of paddling back of us.
We were slow getting our boats out at the take-out (stiff legs and all). Semper Go arrived, racked the boat and we headed out the trek to the TA together. They opted to risk a fire road for a more direct route to the old railroad bridge, while we took the park road to US90, a long but easier route. We were slowed a bit as Jim’s knee was really hurting – so our running pace had slowed quite a bit. Melissa had a brace at the TA – which would help Jim.
At the TA we would need to mark maps, and then head out. I was feeling very sluggish at this point and took a little too long after marking maps to get myself moving onto the bike. Semper Go left 13 minutes ahead of us on the bike leg, but I wanted to use the time to ensure a clean navigation when we were out there. Our original race plan had been for Melissa to navigate this leg, but our early success in team navigation made us change the plan – I would do primary navigation, while Melissa would keep track of distances. This worked quite well as we had no trouble finding CP9 and then CP8. From CP8 the road network leading out to 16th Ave seemed to me to be a little off – but staying to the roads leading west I knew would eventually get us to road. We hit it – took an odometer reading and then moved fast to the entrance to OP10 which had a strong backdrop (power lines) at the entrance. We planned to take the best road possible to OP10 – and made some good choices in here, catching Semper Go and putting us back in the lead as we backtracked out to 16th Ave.
I calculated the distance from the OP10 entrance to the OP11/12 entrance at 4 km by simply looking at the UTM grid and subtracting 59 – 55. (look at the N/S grids on the map). We laid into this leg and sure enough the entrance was clearly marked and at 4.1 km. Semper Go had opted to get OP11 first, so we headed for OP12. I had noticed 2 trails heading north off the main road and wanted to be completely sure we took the correct one. For some reason the map had me confused at this choice – so Melissa and I talked it out and decided to take the eastern most choice (which was correct). Looking at the maps today it seems obvious – but at 1 AM, shivering, in the dark, in the woods – nothing seems obvious. This road turned out to be pretty much the worst of all the roads in this leg; rooted, angled, sandy, with logs and water. We chunked along and Semper Go passed us going the other way heading out. By now we were pretty used to seeing each other. The control was right on the money – so it was now simply a matter of heading back out and sprinting home (I did briefly consider using the other trail out – though bailed on that idea).
Once we hit 16th Ave it was a pure sprint north to US 90 and into the TA. Jim was feeling pretty good as he kept dropping us on the bike line – though the line was not terribly effective on the sandy road. Melissa took the line as we turned onto 90 accepting the challenge to bring the pace up to 21 mph (which she did) and we finished a scant 5 minutes behind Semper Go after 11 and ½ hours of racing. We all congratulated each other – we had pushed each other the entire race and had still made it fun. It was fun watching teams heading out onto the bike leg (and later coming back in) especially from a lawn chair by the fire.
Congratulations to everyone who came out and finished this spectacular course. The terrain and scenery were some of the best. The level of challenge of the course was just right Based on the fact that nearly all teams finished in the 18 hour time limit. Good job to Elias and Gomez who once again set a winner of a course with an excellent design and great challenges.
Monday, October 15, 2007
Orienteering Moss Park Red Course 10-13-2007
It was a beautiful day for orienteering, unfortunately for me I could not make it to the event since I had a soccer game and also was a volunteer most of the morning unloading pumpkins from a truck at church. I was able to make it by 3 PM so I got the enjoyment of picking up flags on the red course. The after story of this would be incredibly sore legs and back on Sunday - but this was still Saturday. I've written up this summary of the course (my course in red dash) to help other orienteers look at possible approaches. I am pretty familiar with the area - so I had a little fun with this. Dave Shuman and I got to start together, so we at least had a little bit of a fun run.
Start to 1 - OK this was pretty easy, down the trail across the lake berm running with Dave at an easy pace, south onto open trail. I did enter the woods early instead of taking the conservative route of the trail and cutting west at the open area. This worked pretty well as the woods were quite open.
1 to 2 - This was an Orange level leg, southwest to the trail and a distinct bend west of the flag. Pretty easy.
2 to 3 - Original plan was south to west trail and run to due south of flag and bushwack up. I ended up cutting across to the berm on its far southeast corner as a recent burn had left the terrain pretty wide open. I noticed a few other runners had taken this approach (plenty of footprints going up the berm at this point)..
3 to 4 - I had a bit of trouble tying the flag while jogging, and about midway a lot of downed trees slowed the pace. But I did feel pretty good running and this route pretty much headed north and hand-railed the visible trail to the east. The idea here was to pay attention to the clue (thicket west side) and try to ensure you came across it from the west - which meant staying off the eastern trail.
4 to 5 - Essentially a trail run. A glance at the map showed that the area near CP5 was tricky with no obvious attack point. I over-ran it slightly and had to double back as the flag appeared to be deeper in the palmettos than I though was shown on the map. The idea was simply to follow the edge of the palmettos to the flag and that worked pretty well.
5 to 6 - Essentially due west loking for the best terrain. The distance was short and the clue of a distinct tree I guessed would be visible from a distance and it was.
6 to 7 - The plan here was to find the easiest terrain. I ended up going along the edge of the marsh, however the fenceline was probably easier (it looked like it). The large thicket would be hard to miss - so I was not worried on the approach and took it pretty fast (for the terrain).
7 to 8 - The first part was essentially a fast walk. The footing was treacherous - though the due east bearing was pretty easy. I had a bit of confusion as I came out on the trail as the area to the east was wide open (yellow terrain) and the nearest yellow terrain was 200 meters south of where I figured I was. I took a left on the trail and essentially chalked the discrepancy up to another burn or clearing. The CP was a very easy find from an easy attack point (intersection).
8 to 9 - At this point I stuffed the map in the bag with the flags I was carrying. I figured I would see if I could find the controls using memory (I try to practice this technique whenever possible). I memorized southeast of berm edge for CP9 and due north on man-made object (which I knew to be a sign) for CP10. I picked up the pace as I was feeling pretty good and glanced at my watch as I passed the split oak along the trail (47 minutes). I figured I could finish up in an easy 60 minutes (pretty respectable time). I used the trail as long as I could and then cut across the open terrain to the visible berm. I blew right by the control and got into the open burn area - though I quickly realized I had passed it up. I turned around and looked, no flag - so I broke down and snagged the map back out of the bag. Visibility was very good and I should have seen the flag, looking back I saw a guy in cammo pants carrying a tripod right where the flag should be. I looked at the control description - rootstock. The rootstock was right there in my line of vision and as I ran upon I saw that my angle had simply obscured the flag. Oh well.
9 to 10 - I avoided the temptation to look at the map again (I should have) which I had stuffed back in the bag. I headed due east to the trail and then turned south to head to the trail intersection and towards CP10. It took about 30 seconds to realize something was wrong. The terrain looked wrong and I should have reached the intersection. I broke down again and fished out the map - DOH!, I was already south of the intersection and just ran further south, I don't know how I figured I would end up north of the intersection. It was one of those orienteering moments where you aren't sure how you thought something, and you realize you messed up. Oh well - I turned around and poured on some speed as I knew exactly where to go. Sure enough I could see the flag about 10 strides past the sign. I guess the moral was in doing Memory-O pay attention to the relative positions of the flags.
10 to finish - I was pretty tired and my back was hurting, I still poured on some speed trying now to beat 65 minutes. In the end I ran 65:20 (not bad) which was a dissapointment, but I learned some pretty good lessons about how to use memory in orienteering and hopefully will do well in the next memory-O.
Saturday, October 06, 2007
Croom Crusher 2007
Croom Crusher 2007
Every now and then you just need to do a race to go out there and have a good time. I had originally not planned on doing the Croom Crusher – but I found out that my soccer team had a bye week and the fact that it coincided with the Crusher gave me a chance to race. I needed a team-mate so Melissa Watson hooked me up with one of her race buddies; Jim Lavine.
So it was that I woke up at 4 AM Saturday morning, threw everything in the truck and headed out to Croom. I got there – but nobody had seen Jim (and I did not know what he looked like). I had some breakfast and was able to at least get the maps and sure enough Jim showed up. We had discussed on phone and email our race plan – which for me involves pacing smoothly – going out easy and maintaining an even intensity. We ended up lining up on bikes for the start by team number and we were 62 of 75. There was going to be between 2 and 3 miles of dirt road and then we would enter single track. I knew that if we did not get ahead of a lot of teams we would be trapped in the single track, so when the whistle blew I took off out of a shotgun. Jim as surprised as our “pacing” turned out to be an all out sprint for the single track – which we hit with the top 4 teams. We moved fast through the single track and had great position entering the Silver Lake transition area.
At the TA Jim grabbed a card (a 9) which determined that we would be doing the orienteering first – a good draw as we would hit the running in the cooler morning weather. We took off running – noticing about ¼ mile in that we were still wearing our bike helmets. Oh well – they don’t weigh much. We dropped into a nice easy running pace and moved nicely to each control. Two teams (Team Bill Jacksons – Michael and Aaron, and Team RUOK) caught up with us as we moved through the orienteering. Mike and Aaron (Team Bill Jacksons AR) ran by us carrying a blistering pace – we opted to stick to our game plan and our pacing. We nailed each control – pretty much joking and having a good time. CP1 was just on the back side of a hilltop, pretty easy, though it did involve some cactus dodging. From there we cut east to the Orange trail and followed the trail until I decided to cut into the woods about 200 meters south of where the trail and the river paralleled and then follow the low contour. This worked, but brought us west of the control at the pond which was much thicker terrain than just following the Orange trail. From OCP2 we followed an unmarked trail due west to the edge of the (dry) lakebed and then just dead reckoned due south using the contours to ensure our route to OCP3. OCP3 to 4 was easy as we simply headed southeast and followed the barbed wire fence mentioned in the pre-race meeting. We continued to follow the barbed wire after OCP4 and then cut across the field to the low area and the Oak trees. We looked at pretty much every tree (the map made it look like the tree was on the west side of the depression, it was on the east). OCP6 was an easy find with the river as a handrail, we came in a bit south, but the river bend and nearby depression made for an easy control. From there it was a simple run back on Orange and then a cut across – to the TA.
After arriving at the TA we completed the creative special tests (quite fun – including a slip and slide) and started out on the paddle in what turned out to be a canoe with a broken rib. That did not slow us down – we slammed through the water hitting each CP passing a lot of teams – but still being passed by Charlie in their kayak. Jim and I were joking and having a good time pretty much the entire paddle. It was just before noon when we arrived back at the TA to begin the last section.
The last section would have us biking on Croom single track. The objective was to visit the 6 checkpoints along the single track and draw the location of the CP’s on the supplied map. A good way to keep us on the designated trail. Charlie’s team put about a 10 minute lead on us leading out of the TA – but we were feeling strong going into the bike. We moved fast into the single track and then we slowed a bit – while I watched my odometer, which was good as our first control was 1 km into the course. Since it was just before we hit a mapped power line – it was pretty easy. We caught up with RUOK shortly after that – just before hitting a trail split, and both directions were blue. I took the one marked hard trail which gave me nasty hill climb, but I was rewarded by a great downhill drop before joining back up with the easy route (about 100 meters later). We kept together – easily finding and mapping CP2 near a pond. There was serious sand chunking getting to CP3 (with mild slopes up and fun downhills). Around CP4 – RUOK dropped back a bit and we kept on with a pretty fast pace. I was not paying attention as we approached CP5, luckily it was near a marked trail intersection – making it pretty easy to map. Another team (Rob and Sheri, not sure of the team name) caught up with us just before CP6 and I was starting to run out of juice – though Jim was ready to hammer. I did my best to keep pace – especially up the final hill to the finish and we finished just behind Rob and Sheri, but with no penalties that put us in 3rd place overall.
Most important we had a great time, and racing with new racer Jim turned out to be a lot of fun, we are now looking at the “Howl at the Moon”.
Every now and then you just need to do a race to go out there and have a good time. I had originally not planned on doing the Croom Crusher – but I found out that my soccer team had a bye week and the fact that it coincided with the Crusher gave me a chance to race. I needed a team-mate so Melissa Watson hooked me up with one of her race buddies; Jim Lavine.
So it was that I woke up at 4 AM Saturday morning, threw everything in the truck and headed out to Croom. I got there – but nobody had seen Jim (and I did not know what he looked like). I had some breakfast and was able to at least get the maps and sure enough Jim showed up. We had discussed on phone and email our race plan – which for me involves pacing smoothly – going out easy and maintaining an even intensity. We ended up lining up on bikes for the start by team number and we were 62 of 75. There was going to be between 2 and 3 miles of dirt road and then we would enter single track. I knew that if we did not get ahead of a lot of teams we would be trapped in the single track, so when the whistle blew I took off out of a shotgun. Jim as surprised as our “pacing” turned out to be an all out sprint for the single track – which we hit with the top 4 teams. We moved fast through the single track and had great position entering the Silver Lake transition area.
At the TA Jim grabbed a card (a 9) which determined that we would be doing the orienteering first – a good draw as we would hit the running in the cooler morning weather. We took off running – noticing about ¼ mile in that we were still wearing our bike helmets. Oh well – they don’t weigh much. We dropped into a nice easy running pace and moved nicely to each control. Two teams (Team Bill Jacksons – Michael and Aaron, and Team RUOK) caught up with us as we moved through the orienteering. Mike and Aaron (Team Bill Jacksons AR) ran by us carrying a blistering pace – we opted to stick to our game plan and our pacing. We nailed each control – pretty much joking and having a good time. CP1 was just on the back side of a hilltop, pretty easy, though it did involve some cactus dodging. From there we cut east to the Orange trail and followed the trail until I decided to cut into the woods about 200 meters south of where the trail and the river paralleled and then follow the low contour. This worked, but brought us west of the control at the pond which was much thicker terrain than just following the Orange trail. From OCP2 we followed an unmarked trail due west to the edge of the (dry) lakebed and then just dead reckoned due south using the contours to ensure our route to OCP3. OCP3 to 4 was easy as we simply headed southeast and followed the barbed wire fence mentioned in the pre-race meeting. We continued to follow the barbed wire after OCP4 and then cut across the field to the low area and the Oak trees. We looked at pretty much every tree (the map made it look like the tree was on the west side of the depression, it was on the east). OCP6 was an easy find with the river as a handrail, we came in a bit south, but the river bend and nearby depression made for an easy control. From there it was a simple run back on Orange and then a cut across – to the TA.
After arriving at the TA we completed the creative special tests (quite fun – including a slip and slide) and started out on the paddle in what turned out to be a canoe with a broken rib. That did not slow us down – we slammed through the water hitting each CP passing a lot of teams – but still being passed by Charlie in their kayak. Jim and I were joking and having a good time pretty much the entire paddle. It was just before noon when we arrived back at the TA to begin the last section.
The last section would have us biking on Croom single track. The objective was to visit the 6 checkpoints along the single track and draw the location of the CP’s on the supplied map. A good way to keep us on the designated trail. Charlie’s team put about a 10 minute lead on us leading out of the TA – but we were feeling strong going into the bike. We moved fast into the single track and then we slowed a bit – while I watched my odometer, which was good as our first control was 1 km into the course. Since it was just before we hit a mapped power line – it was pretty easy. We caught up with RUOK shortly after that – just before hitting a trail split, and both directions were blue. I took the one marked hard trail which gave me nasty hill climb, but I was rewarded by a great downhill drop before joining back up with the easy route (about 100 meters later). We kept together – easily finding and mapping CP2 near a pond. There was serious sand chunking getting to CP3 (with mild slopes up and fun downhills). Around CP4 – RUOK dropped back a bit and we kept on with a pretty fast pace. I was not paying attention as we approached CP5, luckily it was near a marked trail intersection – making it pretty easy to map. Another team (Rob and Sheri, not sure of the team name) caught up with us just before CP6 and I was starting to run out of juice – though Jim was ready to hammer. I did my best to keep pace – especially up the final hill to the finish and we finished just behind Rob and Sheri, but with no penalties that put us in 3rd place overall.
Most important we had a great time, and racing with new racer Jim turned out to be a lot of fun, we are now looking at the “Howl at the Moon”.
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