Tracking my wanderlust need to get out of town once a month

Track my O progress here

This past weekend we competed at the Intercollegiate champs at Quantico. I was looking forward to returning to the map "Combat Village East". Four years ago, at the US Champs, I DNF'd on this map (something I very rarely do). I was determined to conquer this map.

Day one was run at Combat Village East. It went better this time (I finished the course!) but it still was a challenge. I ran 87 minutes on a 4.9K course. The course winner's time was 45 minutes. At one point during the run, I stopped to check that the contour interval was 5m, not 3m. Things were flatter than I expected them to be. Afterwards, while looking at the course with Mike, he pointed out that there are many form lines on this map. I couldn't see the difference between a form line and a contour line during the race. Still, I had other problems during the race; my concentration wasn't great and I made several mistakes.

Day two was on Combat Village West. Four years ago, I had my best ever run on this map. Don't ask me why I have such different reactions to these maps. The terrain is the same, the mapper is the same. Somehow, I do better on one than the other.

History repeated itself this weekend. I posted a new, best-ever per K time. I ran the 5.9 course in 78 minutes, compared to the winner's time of 45 minutes. My navigation was much inproved over the day before, and I even managed to jog through the woods from time to time.

There was an added attraction to this weekend's intercollegiate meet. For the first time, they introduced an "alumni" category. I was surprised to find that two other Cornell alumni had registered (Ann and Charlie Leonard from CNYO). I was even more surprised to learn that we were in second place after day one. J-J's tactic of running red in order to gain points for MIT was in vain. (Well, not really in vain, but Cornell was still ahead of MIT.) On day two, Charlie and I each moved up one place in our categories, so we earned even more points for our team (Ann was first each day). In the end, however, those pesky alums from U of Michigan beat us for the title. We were pleased with second place this year, but just wait until next year!
posted by Mary 4:16 PM [edit]