January 4 avanced event in Umstead South

Totally disastrous event for me. First time since the last Raven Rock event I got lost on a control. Plus a few additional bad decisions. Plus slippery ground and several falls. Plus my stupid choice of running Red instead of Green, so now my knee hurts. Plus a wrongly placed control. Did I miss anything?..

Well, regardless, here is how I managed through the course.

#1. Simple and easy straight run, noticing rock piles and then a gully before I reached the control.

#2. Walked through the green to the road and then used the road to get close to the control.

#3. Avoided gaining extra elevation by going to the left initially and then cutting down. Control was in its usual place :-) There is always a control at that boulder.

#4. Reached the road as fast as I could, ran till the road's bend and went down using the eastern slope of the re-entrant with an idea to end up right from the control, so it could be an easy find. Ha! The control was in the wrong place, so my plan didn't work. I spent considerable time double-checking my position there and finally came to conclusion that the control was somehow misplaced. By that time there were several runners lurking in the same area looking for the control. Then I noticed Nadya sprinting to the right and correctly guessed that she saw the control. Indeed, it was there (see the red arrow below). Right there I made the biggest mistake of the day: I decided to go Red instead of Green. I guess I was well rested after leisure search for the misplaced control and thought I could do bigger course today... Also since then Nadya, Charles and I formed some kind of a train. We ran separately but always converged at the controls. After my disaster at #10, Charles went ahead and Nadya left me at #12 too, as I wasn't running anymore.

#7. Easy. Straight to the road and used the road and then trail to get to the control.

#8. Back to the road, crossed the bridge. Then made a mistake by going south-east instead of north-east. Quickly corrected it, but had to walk up a steep hill as a result. The rest was easy - up the hill keeping the re-entrant on my left till the control.

#9. Went north counting re-entrants till the correct one.

#10. Reached the road and ran west counting the re-entrants. It looks like I veered to the north too much as well as miscounted re-entrants. Anyway, I ended up on the hill AFTER the control thinking that I was still before the control. Met Nadya there (apparently confused too) and we proceed further west till the next big re-entrant. The re-entrant didn't look like the correct one, so we stayed there for a little while thinking where we are. I was totally lost as that point and decided to go down to the river to restore my bearing. Just a few steps down we reached an earth bank which shown us where we are. Ouch. Walked back up that huge hill and then down to the control.

#11. I was too exhausted to try to go back up that hill again, so went down to the river and reached the control from that side.

#12. Walked through the green to the trail, ran across the river and then walked up the hill to the control. Was barely walking at that time.

#13. No way I was going to cross all those re-entrants, so I went south to the trail and cut across only one of the re-entrants back to the trail. Stayed on the trail and then went down to the control (also avoiding green by doing so).

#14. Back to the trail, then used the trail bend as an attack point. Easy.

#15. Slowly walked by the amphitheater heading for the control. Thought about finishing right there, but decided to complete the course.

#16. Used the road until I passed the depression, then cut across the power line and reached the control from the north.

#17. Just went west, reached the road and ran to the finish.

Time spent on the course: 1 hour 39 minutes

Here is my route. Click on the image to enlarge. Blue - mostly running, yellow-brown - mostly walking.