O-Cup Finale

Terrain: flat, trail, forest, crusty snow

Weather: plus a few, sunny

Format: Thomass Box with dog-bone controls

Zoom in for my tracks. Or don't.

It was Spring Forward weekend, and despite the fact that I had on the Saturday 1) warned a newcomer co-worker of the time change, and 2) sent out a reminder on my club's FB page for everyone to get up for the race on time, I still totally forgot, stayed up late and very nearly fell fast asleep without changing my alarm clock. Crisis averted, but I was a wreck the next morning and rolled in to the race totally last-minute. What else is new?? So not much time, or wherewithal, to look at the map and plan out which of the criss-crossing dog-bones to attack.

Once in the Thomass box, you had to take each lettered bone in pairs before continuing onto the next one. I know I made a rudimentary plan at the start line, but what followed was a long traverse in crusty deep snow that made us all post-hole our way across a field and shake all the bright ideas we'd had out of our heads.

My route: hH-Ee-cC-fF-Bb-Aa. I think I was trying to avoid the longest bones without really taking into account how much extra distance I'd have to cover in between them to do that. I got hit by my usual running/period cramps ahead of the box, so I huffed and puffed my way through that, thinking - Hey! With all this walking, I'll have extra time to think! Didn't help.

After H, I travelled a bit with what looked like a Giant's Rib Raid team practising together (several guys, with packs, and too much chattering). They took me through a lot of green. Why didn't I notice that on the map? The E's were fast and easy after that, but I under-shot little-c. Also lost a shoe in the crust - why can't Oroc make a decent shoelace to go with its super-tacular shoes? I was feeling my broken ass at this point, so I slowed right down.

After I picked up C, I actually stopped because I had no memory of what the crap I was supposed to do next. To minimize damage, I went out to get little-f, then back on the big trail for F and B. Kept bumping into those raid guys over and over, kind of funny. Little-b was a very special control, as it was a derelict sofa in the middle of the woods. I was happy that the Aa leg would finally take me home, but I got really turned around coming out from A, and hit a north-south trail instead of the big east-west. Luckily, this is my favourite mistake, so I always check the trail direction.

Closer to little-a I had the raiders hot on my heels again, and I decided to shortcut across an open field. I had evidently not yet learned that while yellow is an awesome colour to run through under normal conditions, that crusty snow is a horrible alternative to the long way around on a beaten trail. Stump stump stump stump. I didn't learn that for a second time coming out of #5 - "I'll just take this 0.59-second shortcut down this little hill instead of through everyone else's tracks like a chump." Splat! My foot got stuck in the crust, and down I went. With Pat-hectic and MJ laughing right behind me.

There was a nice long trail run past 6 and on to 7, but I took the wrong trail through the woods and emerged on that gosh-darned start field way too far north. Stomp stomp stomp... stomp.. gasp... stomp, argh!!! Leaving 9, one of the juniors asked me if he could glance at my map because of mumble mumble. So I stopped for a second, at which point the kid took off for the finish, and there went another point for me.

For all the grumbling and complaining, this was really an awesome course, one to remember. And the whole time I thought it was the man they call Tiny who was to blame, whereas it was actually DS who had devised this evil plan. He showed me his Cheat Sheet of the allegedly best routes for each handicap. I cried a little. I don't remember the whole thing, but it started with little-a and came back out at little-c. Not in a million years would I have come up with that.

--Distance: 9.5km
--Duration: 1:29:03
--Place: 19th

Fun fun fun, winter fun. Can't believe the Thomass / O-Cup season is already over. With my org points from our club race, I did pretty well!
--Place Overall: 13th
--Place Female: 5th
--Place Age Group: 1st - yay!