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”.
No comments:
Post a Comment