O-Meet at McDowell Nature Preserve

TRAINING LEAD-UP

Sunday, Jan 15:

HDT 35.5.3 (Arms) in 44 min, followed by HDT 35.5.CP (Don't Look) 30 min BW AMRAP with 3 rounds and 5 reps.

Tuesday, Jan 17:

HDT 35.3.2 (Legs) in 26 min, followed by a 1 mile coupon ruck with a 30#R and 60#SB

Met up with SB at Blackstone.  I re-acquainted myself with my LMT with the red dot, and my Glock 19C.

Thursday, Jan 19:

My right butt wasn't 100%, but it felt better when shuffling.  This was a hard effort for a 12 miler in 3:25:44, compared to what it should've felt like.  My body is probably still recovering from Mammoth.

I didn't need a bathroom stop or food, and drank half a bottle of water.  I used the Salomon X Missions with Mudgear ruck socks that worked pretty well.

CAROLINA ORIENTEERING KLUBB @ MCDOWELL NATURE PRESERVE

This was SB's only second O-Meet.  I had been able to make it out to a handful of them (at Kings Mt NMP and Kings Mt State Park).  For her first one, we partnered up, which was fun to do as friends, and also allowed us to figure out how we liked to co-Nav.  This time, though, we chose to sign up as solos, so that we'd essentially get double the nav practice, instead of having to take turns leading and only getting about half of the experience.  It's nice to be able to talk through options during the event, but you don't get a chance to make mistakes, learn to correct, test theories, and have only yourself to rely on, when you're with someone else.  It's a very different experience.  

We chose a time to meet up, so that we could get our maps, independently plan routes, and then stagger our starts.  We still wanted to start at a similar time, so that we could re-connect afterwards to compare our routes and experiences.  

Going to CP1, it looked like I'd have to deal with water, potentially, but I banked on finding an easy way to cross the water and took a more direct route.  The water ended up being mostly dried up and minimal, and I was able to hug the stream on my way to the first CP.  SB took a longer, trail-based route to get there.  That was interesting, because she's normally the bigger risk taker.

Next, it was an easy 60* bearing to hit a wide backstop of a loop road.  I found my second right turn at the right point in the loop and took the side trail to an easy intersection with a powerline clearing.  

To get to the next point, first, I followed the powerline trail until I saw a left turn, which came up more quickly than I expected, but it took me where I wanted to go.  Afterwards, SB said that this was an earlier offshoot, and there was a second one later, but they ended up converging soon, anyways.  Once on the trail, I pace counted and looked at the vegetation on the map to get past a denser area and then turn right, to go into the woods at a 150* bearing south, to the next checkpoint.

I kept going in the same direction to get onto a trail and hit an intersection, which confirmed where I was, and then I pace counted 120m to decide where to turn left and go into the woods to find CP4.

I shot north to get back onto the trail, and was originally going to take a couple of trails to get to CP5.  There was a stream crossing that I was wanting to avoid.  When I got to the point where I'd start the big detour to avoid the stream crossing, though, I saw that the stream was passable without getting wet, so I cut through and jumped over the stream to get CP5, which was right on the trail.

I could continue on that trail to get back up to the paved loop that I had been on earlier, on my way from CP1 to CP2.  This time, though, I went left when I got to the loop, to take the shortest path towards CP6, which was also going to be easiest to get to via trails, without adding much distance at all.  CP7 was nearby, and as I ran to CP6 (I could run because it was on trail, and nav was straightforward), I looked left and saw the deer trail leading to CP7, and I could even see the CP from far away.  I got to CP6, whose turnoff had a backstop of a road, as a bonus, in case there were any issues, and it wasn't too far inland from there.

Running back on the trail to the deer trail turnoff for CP7 was easy, since I already knew where it was.

I took some easy trails to get to CP8, which was near a little bridge.

There were more trails that led to CP9.

To get to CP10, I continued on the trail, although there was one point where I could've saved some time by going off-trail for a more direct route, in hindsight, because the terrain was pretty flat despite being off-trail.  Then, at a certain point, I had to go off-trail and hug a contour (to keep it easy, vs shooting a bearing over a hill) to get CP10.

CP10 was at the top of a big, steep re-entrant.  I could see someone walking on a completely different trail, way at the bottom.  I took the re-entrant down to the trail, and used the trail for a straight shot back to home base.

Afterwards, I looked at the map and figured that the trail was the only sensible way to come back, so I started going back, to see if I could see SB along the way to snap some pictures of her finish.

She runs fast.

Afterwards, we compared notes on how we approached each leg.  

Good times, good learning.  I think we're ready for the next level up from Orange, though!  This level had a lot of trail-based options, so we need something that will challenge our pure nav skills a little bit more.

Later in the day, I did HDT 35.4.1 (arms) with 46 min of mostly BW yet still challenging PT and 19:10 for a 2 mile run.