From there it was around the marshy (but dry) lake to the trail, and then south to the east west trail. I followed that trail west (and a little north) as it was pretty easy running and there was some shade. I headed southwest at the intersections and followed the road all the way to the control just past a trailer.
From there it was north to Hill Road, and then the lighter jogging trail which was pretty overgrown on the direct beeline to CP3. It was across the road on the same bearing, aiming off a little to the left so that I could use the trail near CP3 as a backstop. As I reached the trail the trail curves were pretty obvious, I ran into Greg and Mark (Team Pangea) here and we all quickly found the depression.
From there I headed west northwest along the trail to the open trail heading north. Mark and Greg went the other direction. After hitting the main road I pushed east a little finding a small opening that led out to the trail heading north to CP4. I passed another team approaching CP4. Here is where the going got tough.
I decidied to go north around the green patch to CP5. It was incredibly tall grass and fennel, with scattered blackberry thorns. And it was in full sun. I found the little road cut-through (marked in black) and punched through the tall grass to the man made feature (telephone pole and CP5) I ran into Anna from Team Green Paw here and said hi.
From CP5 it was south in the open, hot and sunny tall grass. The grass required you to step real high, so just walking was pretty draining, especially with the incredible heat. As I pushed south of the green patch southeast of CP5 I twisted my ankle and went down hard. I had a small moment of panic as the pain dropped me to the ground and I felt my heart rate skyrocket with the pain and heat. I decided to crawl/limp to the mapped green patch and push into the shade. Here I used controlled breathing to slow my heart rate and the shade brought my temperature back down. I felt as if something had plugged into my body and drained every last bit of energy I had. Fortunately, however, after I punched into the green - the undergrowth in the shaded area was not bad and the footing was much better (not chewed up like the open fields). I walked through the green patch across the one open area, and back into the last green patch to the long open stretch to CP6. I could see Anna's head bobbing as she walked towards CP6, not more than 200 yards in front of where I was. She had walked along the outside of the green patch in the thick grass, and even with the crawling and resting had not gotten that far ahead.
As I exited the green I could see why she had not made much headway. The footing was bad, the grass was thick and chest-high, and the blistering sun made for extremely slow going. As I apprached CP6, Greg and Mark caught up with me. CP6 was pretty easy to find, but I was hurting. I headed to the N-S dirt road and headed south. My intention was to take it to the main road and hit CP7 from the south. A second glance at the map wiped that from my mind, it was a long way around a out of bounds zone, and that zone was marked off with an electric fence.
CP6 to CP7 was simple suffering in heat and tall grass. I ran into Jason Willems girlfriend (sorry not remembering names) who was also heading to the same control. We had a bit of punching through more fennel grass, but the control was in a pretty easy spot. From there it was south and out of the field. My plan was to go due south and a little west to the trail south of the dirt road and a little west of CP8 and follow it around to CP8, this worked out well and the control was clearly visible from a couple hundred yards.
I only had one leg to go and had cooled down quite a bit from the heat. I considered running, but a couple of steps on the bad ankles destroyed any idea of doing that. I did want to break 2 hours (which would have probably been easy without the injury) but if I did it would be simple luck. Anyway CP9 was a near due east jaunt with plenty of distinct features. I punched through the last bit of white woods pretty much on top of it and headed to the start finish table, which seemed like a long way off. I started into a jog, made it 2 steps, and then decided to preserve my ankles for another race.
As it turned out I was able to finish in 2 hrs 1 minute, so really only a minute off the pace I had started out to beat. Rock Springs has a shower - so I was able to clean up, get some water, talk with Tim, Anna, Jason, Greg, Mark, Bob, and the outdoor athlete crowd before heading home. All in all, a good day, and I was able to push to the limits - which always makes it a great weekend.
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