Fire Mountain COC Race

Yesterday, COC held their annual orienteering race at Fire Mountain in Mt. Vernon, it being so close I felt I had to do it! This was actually the same location I did my first orienteering event solo a year ago. The area out there is phenominal for this type of activity, plenty of ups and downs along with a number of trails to get lost on. Of course, the whole goal is to not get lost!!

My goal for the day was simply to run a smart race, not necessarily go for an all out physical effort but really make an attempt to think my way through the course. The advice I repeated over and over in my head before the start was, "Find #1 without a huge loss in time then move on." It worked, CP 1 was only about 75 meters from the start gate but was hidden well and before I got anxious, I stopped - breathed and what do you know, there is was right around the corner. CP 2 was a sinch hiding behind a building and then things began to get more challenging. Trail options surfaced and constantly checking the map while running/brisk walking started to fog out the tiredness the legs and lungs were starting to feel just 5 minutes into the race. 3 & 4 I hit pretty much right on then I chose a trail that was there a year ago, but has since been overgrown with blackberries to get to 5 (probably lost a few seconds with the whack). 5 - 6 was pretty straight forward, just stay on the jeep trail that had rolling hills the whole way. On the way to 7 I was able to run a fun single track trail that was pretty slick! Fortunately, I didn't find myself on the ground however on the final steep decent I blew past the CP. Getting to the fork in the trail I knew it, but opted to look around a bit. Wasting a few minutes (seemed longer) I made a wise choice to run up the steep trail and sure enough there 7 was, waiting for me. On to 8 & 9 no problem, after 9 I decided to make it interesting so I did a quick creekteering section running through a creek, rather than taking the long road around, I'm not too sure if it made a huge impact in my time, but it was sure FUN!! Running with water logged shoes I nailed the rest of the CP's with no mistakes. Coming to the finish line I put together one last sprinting effort and was pleased to hear that I was currently in 1st place! I know what you are thinking and no I wasn't the only one that had done the course, there were about 8 others at the time that had already finished and I was 8+ minutes ahead of second place. I was feeling pretty good and after seeing a current student of mine and talking to fellow adventure racer Eric Bone (mergeo.com), Annalisa and I took off for a little coffee and time with the family (Teva & other too) for Brett's B-day. The big 24, Congrats!!!