One Cowboy Relay

Posted Thu, September 3, 2009 - 12:59 PM
orienteering, wyoming

Today was the first official race of Laramie Daze - the ever popular one man (cowboy, girl, whatever) relay. We had a mass start and each were given a map case with four maps in it: Loops A, B, C, and Z. The first three loops were all very similar, but each person had them in a random order. The last loop was the same for all runners. Each time we completed a loop, we were supposed to remove the top map from the case, drop it in the box at the finish chute and proceed out on the next one.

September 2, 2009 Loop A at the Gates of AMT Hell, near Laramie, WY. Click to enlarge.

My maps turned out to be in order, A-B-C-Z. Loop A was first, and everyone sprinted out of the gate, across the trail and through the reentrant past the boulders on the other side. I focused in on my first control west of the small hilltop, and tried to ignore the other runners scattered around. After all two-thirds of them weren't going the same place I was. I followed the south edge of the reentrant and, as I approached the hill, let one of the faster runners who was on my loop show me the exact spot. Then I set a quick compass bearing and ran out into the open area north of #2. However, I strayed a little to the east and hit the two boulders about 50 meters away from the control - and behold, there was another control hanging there, but with the wrong code! OK, now I knew where a control was on a subsequent loop. I quickly corrected SW to the right one, and then ran straight down the spur to #3. There were still a lot of runners around, with a stream of people punching at #3.

After crossing the road on the way to #4, I had to slow down and walk up the hill. The sagebrush was thick and fairly tall, and it just took too much effort to lift my feet up high enough and run uphill at the same time. A couple of people passed me, but with obvious effort - so, no big deal. I headed directly for the saddle about halfway down the line, went in and out of the first reentrant and jogged over to the second one near a small cluster of pines. Then it was straight over the ridge to the north, with several runners up top, and a downhill run to #5 and through the finish chute. I saved some time by pulling the old map out and scanning the new map on the way into the finish chute.

September 2, 2009 Loop B at the Gates of AMT Hell, near Laramie, WY. Click to enlarge.

Loop B looks almost the same! Well #1 was a little different at least, and that's all I got to chance to examine before leaving the finish chute. I took the same route across the reentrant, now with an incipient elephant trail, and came a little south of the line until I identified the spur leading NE to the control. However, the green vegetation proved accurate and there was quite a bit of ground juniper to thrash through, so this leg was slow. I should have tried to come in farther north, past Loop A #1 and catch the white corridor leading ESE to the control. Now I had to dogleg and thrash out the same area.

At least I knew where #2 was from seeing it on the last loop! And I had almost arrived at #3 before realizing it was the same as on the previous leg. So now I had to walk the hill again, and no elephant trail in sight this time. I crossed the saddle a second time and turned down the first reentrant this time. I hadn't seen the control on the first loop even through I passed just above it. By now people had started to spread out, and I only saw a couple people here and there for the rest of the race. Then, up and over to the same #5, and on to Loop C:

September 2, 2009 Loop C at the Gates of AMT Hell, near Laramie, WY. Click to enlarge.

I remembered seeing another runner (earlier) punch at my #1 for this loop, so I went straight to it, although more at a jog than a run. And #2 was higher up then my previous #2s, but again I managed a direct route. As I turned to head down towards #3, I could look down and see both of the other controls in a line to the WSW (since they were placed on the S/SE sides of the respective features). Doing Loop C first might have given a slight advantage to some runners, but no big deal. I then took the exact same route I had on the previous loop down the spur to #3, and then the same route up to the saddle and then climbing a little towards the cliff and bare rock. However, I climbed a little too high and had to scramble over the bare rock and drop a few feet off the south side of the cliff to punch #4. Again, the same #5 and then it was on to the last loop.

September 2, 2009 Loop Z at the Gates of AMT Hell, near Laramie, WY. Click to enlarge.

This one was a little longer, and a little different. I chased Tom S through the finish chute and headed for #1 on top of a hill with a mess of rocks and cliffs. It was easy to see the hill from the chute, so we ran across the open flat, skirted the trees, and curved around to hit the control. Tom stayed in front of me going south down the spur, and I crossed the creek and stayed to the right to catch the large reentrant and avoid a steep rocky climb. Tom must have been delayed, because he came up behind me as I proceeded up the reeentrant. I was having some trouble reading the map here and slowed down, but I wasn't the only one. We caught up with two more runners slowly going up, and two others came from behind. So now we had half a dozen people right in the reentrant slowly trying to make sense of the map. Eventually I found the control without overrunning it, but I was slow and cautious, and there was a bit of luck playing into it. Then, I climbed out of the reentrant and headed just to the right of the really really big boulder to the south.

The next control was in a tricky section of rocks, so I went straight for the NE-SW slanting hill to follow it down to the control. Again, I didn't overrun it, but was very slow through here. Tom had gone too far north and had to climb back up, so he gave up his lead as we punched at the same time. The next leg to #4 was tougher as well. I didn't think it was worth going south around the rocky spur to trade distance for elevation, and since I was walking anyway, just went straight up and over on the line. However, when I got to the other side I was having trouble figuring out where the hilltop with the control was. I proceeded west a bit until I realized I was on the side the reentrant about 50 meters below one of my earlier controls. Things clicked into place, and I looked 90 degrees to my left to see Tom on his way in to the easily visible (from this angle!) control. I sprinted over, punched, and navigated cleanly to #5 behind a boulder. But at this point Tom was ahead of me by about 20 seconds, and I didn't think I would be able to overcome that. So I jogged over the ridge towards #6, and ran down the other side to #6 and then to the finish, but the gap was about the same at the end.

Well, that's what mistakes will do to you! If I had been clean on #4, it would have been much closer, and we possibly would have switched places. I ended up in 8th with a time of 53:09 for a little over 6 km. Ian was the next runner to come in, about five minutes later.

This course actually seemed a lot longer than it really was, I'm not sure why?