Race 11-19 Desert Map Trek 4hr. - Red Rocks Canyon State Park

February 26th, 2011
4 hr Rogaine - 3:55:13 (760/960 pts.) - 2nd/6
Garmin Tracking here.

I spend the past weekend in Southern California to run the Desert Map Trek Rogaines on Saturday and Sunday. I drove down Friday night and stayed in Bakersfield, which was 84 miles west of the race location, Red Rocks Canyon State Park in Cantil, CA. The Saturday event started at noon so there was plenty of time to get a full night’s sleep before driving to the park in the morning.

On Saturday I got to the park about 45 minutes before the race, which is quite early for me. I had time to fill out forms for both days’events but I only paid for Saturday not knowing if my left hamstring which had been sore the previous week would be good to run on the 2nd day. There was a 4 hour event and a 2 hour event. I opted for the 4. There were 19 controls on the curse and I only planned on getting half of them. The event organizer, Rex Winterbottom, said I should be able to get more if I do well. I was easily the fastest runner there although I’m significantly worse at the navigation aspect that many of the regular orienteering participants. It was bright and sunny but only in the mid 40’s so I forgot to put on sun block. I passed on wearing a hat so I wouldn’t get too hot and since it was cool I made a last minute decision not to carry a water bottle which worked out well for me.

Only 3 of us were at the start on time, but I couldn’t leave immediately due to my Garmin watch data being full. I left 2:16 late, after I had deleted sufficient old records to allow for a new event. Several of us converged near the first control and took a few minutes to find it, reminding me of the difficulty I sometimes have at these where I’m really close but can’t quite find it. Eventually we all found it and in hindsight didn’t seem to be too hidden. There were several other people around on my way to the 2nd and third controls as well, and that made it a little easier to find them. At that point I began to go south along a ridge while it seemed most people headed east into a basin below the ridge I ran along. In this whole area there were volcanic rocks scattered about the land.

I was all alone at the 4th control and continued below an East/West road that divided the course into a top and bottom half. The bottom half didn’t have all the volcanic rocks but it was more desert-like. I lost my bearings temporarily because the terrain really flattened out but eventually found my way by following dried waterways. It was at this point that I ran into Bud, who covered ground a lot slower than my but seemingly in a more direct way. He seemed to get right to the controls, or within a close range and I spent a lot of time looking around. He and I went back and forth for the rest of the time. We talked a little at a couple different controls as we both were looking in the same vicinity. In the rest of the time I saw only 2 other participants and they were teamed together. I briefly talked with them as they were looking for a control that Bud and I were also looking for.

I headed through a canyon of deep red rocks on the east side, near the highway on the way bad. Bud caught up to me in the canyon (again) as I was looking for a control in the canyon that I didn’t end up finding. Bud bailed on it earlier because he knew he’d have less time to get back by the cutoff, but my spending an additional 10 minutes didn’t help. I got one other control on the way back that was right on the natural route and ran the rest of the way back. I caught Bud and got to the end before him which worked out because it seems ties in points go to whoever finishes earlier.

More to come tomorrow…