Possum Trot XI

December 2, 2007

"Is this a good year or a bad year?" asked Fritz Menninger (3rd on the all-time Possum Trot standings) when I arrived at the Pre-Possum event on Saturday. I chuckled saying I didn't know because the odd/even streak had been broken two years ago with a podium finish at PTIX. Of course, last year's second-place result was better still and while I was certainly not going to engage in any trash talking, I had it in the back of my mind that just maybe this was a race I could win. I've done well in long races on fast terrain this year and this year's venue at Shawnee Mission Park west of Kansas City promised plenty of blasting through fields and relatively open woods.

Arriving at the finish first will require bumping off some fairly big names; this year's field is as good as any so far. Perennial favorite Mikell Platt is on hand as are the Canadians Patrick Goeres and Steven Graupner. Behind those three favorites are many of the usual folks who make up the main pack: all-time Trot leader and local favorite Michael Eglinski, Tom Carr from Texas, and the Minnesota gang including Justin Bakken and Pete Curtis. Notably absent is David Frei who opts for the Castlewood Adventure Race instead.

The Pre-Possum does nothing to build confidence. During my warm-up, I'm dismayed to find that my left ankle and foot are still badly bruised from tripping on a fence last weekend (I had cycled rather than running all week in hopes they'd heal up). After re-tying several times, I'm able to run in the spikes without much pain, but decide I'd better take it easy today and not aggravate things. The course is still quite a bit of fun, despite a steady, cold rain, but I'm well off the pace.

The evening is spent at the annual Possum Trot Christmas Party. Attendance is good, the food is outstanding, and the white elephant gift exchange is as animated as always. I get the honor of reading a welcome letter from the Mayor of Kansas City. I have been asked to do this with as much pomp as possible and, since arrogance comes rather naturally to me, I happily comply.

The weather goes whacky overnight, rising to a high in the 50's around 2AM before plummeting into the 30's by dawn. While still falling, the temperature is above freezing as I warm up for the 9AM start. While the current conditions are quite nice for running, the chance of rain in the forecast has many wondering what to wear. I decide to go with just a base layer and my usual jersey, figuring that if the rain does come, I'll already be running hard and will be able to suffer through it. The good news is that my foot isn't hurting quite as much, so I'm able to lace my spikes a bit tighter.

The start is the usual madness, made even more so by the fact that it's an uphill road run to the first control. Two minutes into a goat event and I'm already anaerobic. I try to use the road run to figure out my skips, but staying close to the leaders has me going too hard to think clearly. I manage to convince myself that the only good early skip is #2 and I certainly don't want to skip that early. Therefore, I content myself with just trying to not make any huge mistakes until the pace lets up.

By the time I get to 2, the early pace has exploded the field. I can see Platt leaving the control and am pretty sure both Canadians are further ahead, but it's clear that I'm not going to stay with them. On the way to 3, a small pack forms with Carr and Darius Konotopetz taking a lower line to my right. By the time we get to 3, Curtis has caught up as well. Darius hits 5 cleanly and gets away when the rest of us overrun it. That allows Eglinski, Bakken and a few more folks to hitch on. By the first water stop at 9, we've got a pack of 8 running more or less together.

It's time to start taking split strategy seriously. Skipping early with a group of this size behind is very risky. Even a small mistake would allow the pack to catch back up and then they would have a control in hand. Alternatively, waiting until the end carries it's own risks as it means fewer opportunities to separate from the weaker navigators. This is particularly vexing because the last bit of the course is very easy navigation through fields. The finish could well come down to pure footspeed. I'm not afraid of that fight, but I'd rather sort things out while map reading is at a premium.

Leaving 9, I take one last good look at all the skips. 10, 15, and 16 all look good, but I decide the late skips of 22, 25, and 33 are at least as good. I decide on 33 for sure because it's always nice to have a skip in hand if something goes terribly wrong. I'll hold off on the other two until I see what the group is doing. My goal will be to split with as many of the strong runners as possible there.

Running up the hill from 10, things string out a bit with Bakken, Carr, and I getting a gap on the rest of the group. Bakken launches another surge up through the field to 13 and it's impressive enough that Tom and I make no attempt to stay with it. As we are leaving 13, we see him coming back the other way. "That didn't work," he says with a wry grin. Through the fields to 15, it seems that we're getting fairly well clear. Bakken and I have to slow to get through a small herd of horses while Carr, taking the higher route outside the fence gets into the control circle ahead of us. We've also managed to run down Konotoptz, so it's with much dismay that we all boom the control and allow everything to pack up again.

The next three are all fast running through fields and trails and Carr decides it's time to assert himself. I hang on best I can, happy to see that this effort is stretching the group out again. At 18, we bobble a bit and a few catch up, but it's clear that the field is ready to break. I push hard up the hill to 19 and when Carr and Bakken miss 21 low, I sprint off for 22, figuring this is my best chance to be rid of the two that seem to be outrunning me.

I give away a bit of time at 22 when I enter the woods too far to the west and have to contour over on the steep, rocky hillside. Bakken is still with me, and I'm a bit surprised to see Konotopetz along as well, since I thought we had dropped him a ways back (in reality, he had skipped 16 to separate and not gained as much as he might have hoped). Bakken leaves 24 heading south, apparently going for an even later skip.

We make a hash of 26, completely missing the fact that there's a little trail leading into it from the road. By the time we've sorted it out, Carr has caught up and we now have what appears to be a clear gap on the rest of the field. I'm not sure exactly where Konotopetz dropped off, but by 28, it's just Carr and I. This is the situation I had feared: being matched against a better runner over the last few controls. I try in vain to hold on, but he's got the legs and I don't. I lose a minute to him over the last 2K, to finish in 5th with a time of 1:54:46. Justin finishes soon after. Then it's Eglinski (who we hadn't seen since his skip at 15) outsprinting Curtis and Michael Zinno to limit my gains on the all-time Trot standings to a mere 2 points.

While it's never pleasant to get dumped at the end of a race, I can't say that I'm too disappointed with the result. I ran reasonably well and made no big mistakes. I think my skip decisions were pretty good, although in hindsight, I would go ahead and take the better skip at 15 and rely on my navigation to stay ahead. As for ever winning this thing, well, there's clearly some work to do. The lead group simply has me dead on footspeed. I'm not sure if that's something I can overcome or not, but at least it gives me a target to shoot for.

And now, it's time for...

Eric's Absurdly Detailed Split Analysis

As always, this analysis is based on speeds observed among those in the main pack (roughly 4th through 12th in this year's edition). Starting with the single skips:

• 2: Fairly obvious as 2 is almost an out-and-back from 1. 1-2 is a 2-minute leg and coming back towards 3 is about the same because the shorter distance is offset by the climb. Call it 4 minutes. That makes it objectively an excellent skip, but it comes so early that nobody took it. This would be a good skip for someone just off the pace so they could latch onto folks as they pass later on.
• 7: Doesn't save much distance, but it does replace a down and up woods leg with a downhill road run. Saves all of 6-7 and then some. About 3 minutes. Nobody took this.
• 10: Replaces a bunch of hilly woods running with a long road run. I'm a bit surprised more folks didn't go for this. My only explanation is that the whole pack was together here and nobody wanted to separate. 9-10-11 was 8:30 for the pack. 9-11 is about 1K, all road and trail so it should be under 5 minutes. 3:30 saved.
• 15: This is the first one that had any takers in the top half of the field. It should have had more because it's a really good skip. 14-15-16 was 11:40 for the pack. I don't have Eglinski's split, but running 800m down a big spur through open woods from 14 to 16 can't take much more than 6 minutes. At least 5 minutes saved.
• 16: Similar distance savings to skipping 15, but 15-16-17 is predominantly trails and fields so the time savings are smaller. The pack did the long route in 7:40. Konotopetz took this but doesn't list his split. The fact that we caught him just a few controls later would indicate he didn't save much, but that may have been a problem with execution. It looks like around 3:30 to me for 4 minutes saved.
• 18: I actually considered this because I was starting to think I needed to do something radical to separate. 17-19 is about a minute longer than 18-19, so the savings is roughly 17-18 minus a minute (3:45). Not bad, but not as good as what follows.
• 22: The first skip taken by a large portion of the leaders. At first glance, it appears to save both distance and climb, but you only drop two lines from 21 to cross the stream towards 22, so only the distance is significant. The pack fragmented here, but Carr took over 5 minutes out of Bakken and I by taking this. We were sloppy on 22, so we'll call it an even 5:00 gain.
• 25: The other popular one. Again saves distance and a bit more climb. This is offset by the fact that 25-26 is a road run. Again, the pack had shattered by this point, but the fact that Carr and I were back together again at 26 would indicate that this was pretty even with 22. Call it 5:00 again.
• 33: Attractive mainly because it comes so late that it offers some insurance against anything that might go wrong: if you're in trouble on a control, you can always trade it for a late skip and just get out of there. Psychologically, it's also nice to know that you have a skip in hand. It stands up as the best skip on objective grounds as well. No wonder it was the most popular skip. 32-34 was around 2:00 for Carr and I. Graupner (ahead of the pack) did 32-33-34 in 6:29, Ian Harding (behind) did it in 8:33. That would indicate savings of at least 5 minutes for the pack runners, probably closer to 5:30.

• 1, 2: Nobody did this and when Platt mentioned it my first thought was "no way." It's not that bad, though. You can take the road 1.5K all the way to 3. There's a fair bit of climb, but it should still be under 7 minutes. With the field hitting 3 at just over 14 minutes, this is around 7 minutes saved. If you were really confident in your solo navigation, this would be one way to get yourself clear.
• 12, 13: Obvious, but not particularly good. 11-12-13-14 was 8:33 so even if you could do 11-14 in a minute (possible - you're just following the stream for 200m) you only save 7:30. Nobody bit on this one.
• 23, 24: Again, obvious but not good and nobody took it. It simply doesn't save enough distance, plus you still have the big grunt coming up the ridge from 25. This one is hard to estimate from splits because almost everybody in the pack skipped either 22 or 25, but combining my splits with Carr gives 7:25 for 22-23-24-25. This can't save more than 6:30.
• 28, 29: This is the only double skip that rivals the singles in distance saved. It was taken by Bakken and Tom Puzak (neither of whom posted splits, but both had a good split from 21 to the finish). While it does knock off a whopping 1.2K, all of that is field running. 27-28-29-30 was only 9:09 for Carr and I. Assuming 27-30 is less than a minute, it's about 8 minutes saved.

Once again, Mike Shifman succeeded in setting a course with some interesting theoretical skip problems. Unfortunately, these problems were just that, theoretical. In the reality of competition, the skips simply weren't that different. As long as you picked reasonable single skips (or went for the double on 28-29) you were in good shape. Properly judging when to leave the pack was far more significant than the actual time saved on skips.