Billygoat 2018

The Billygoat is one of my favorite races, and also one that I happen to be very good at. Long mass start orienteering race where you're allowed to follow people? sign me up! This year, however, thanks to the knee injury, I wasn't prepared physically for this race. I had a long debate in my head as to whether I should even start, but eventually came to the conclusion that I may as well try. Who needs running training for a running race?

We headed down on Saturday night to hang out with Boris and Alli and Barney and Inara (one of these four is a beagle), before making our leisurely way over to Blue Mountain, in Peekskill.


Ed will sleep here in the dog bed. Barney doesn't mind too much.


Inara did the long race, entirely in the child backpack that Boris was carrying. They had the fastest finish split, but I hear they hiked the rest of it.


Blue Mountain is a fantastic place for orienteering. The trees are tall and well-spaced, with very little groundcover and not even too many downed branches and trees! Lots of great cliffs and rocks to play in. I was last here in 2012 for a training camp run from Neil's house, when he lived in Peekskill. Good times!

So anyway, my plan was to race conservatively. Walk all the uphills, navigate perfectly, and enjoy myself and enjoy the fact that I was out orienteering on a lovely map in great weather. This plan lasted all of 15 seconds, because as soon as we started running, I entered race mode. Old habits die hard.


Click for full map

The first leg had a route choice, and I went left, chasing some fast boys and running with Bridget from West Point. I had my money on her as a winner, but I wasn't going to go down without a fight. As we ran up the hill, I confirmed that she was much stronger than me up the hills right now - I am so out of shape! Turns out that not training doesn't do much for your aerobic capacity. My breath sounded loud in my ears, my heart was pounding, my legs were burning. The self doubt didn't creep in, it jumped in. You're too unfit for this, your knee is probably going to start hurting, you shouldn't play these games if you haven't prepared for them. I tried to ignore the evil little voice by telling myself to be super clean in the navigation, but the fact that I haven't been in the woods in months had left me rusty, and in the technical areas I was really hesitant.

I was running frantically, continually trying to make up time for stupid little mistakes, and never giving myself time to regroup and get into the map. Rushing the navigation meant I kept making mistakes, and then I'd run faster to try and make them up, only to make a mistake because I was getting tired. By #2 I had already dropped three minutes in mistakes, and was at the back of a very large pack that I wanted to be in front of. Of course then I pushed the pace hard, and had made it to the front of the group by #6, but at a high energetic cost.

I was running near Jeremy from HVO at that point, and despite dropping another minute in the vicinity of #8 and basically letting the pack catch back up, we were still in front heading down the beautiful hill towards 9 and 10. At this point, I felt like I probably had the speed and endurance to pull this off, assuming I was actually in the lead for the women. Oh, hubris. Down the hill toward 10 I got wayyy off my line, wandered about for a while trying to figure it out, and ultimately dropped about three minutes. On a single control. Oh, this was getting painful.

Now I was behind the pack again, but still fighting. The downhill trail run towards 11 was built for me, and I pulled a minute back on the pack there. 11 was the aid station, and the volunteers were surprised to see me so far back, which was both humiliating and nice at the same time. They still believe in me! But I'm really sucking at this! As I ran around the pond toward 12, I could see the pack disappearing into the woods, and I was in hunt mode. Working way too hard, I finally caught the tail of the pack at 14, and told myself that I was not allowed to move to the front for at least one control, to let myself recover. I could tell that any matches I had had to begin with were totally burned by now. I had dropped 8 minutes in mistakes at this point. Oh how I wish I'd just gone slower and in the right direction!

Anyway, I was feeling recovered enough to push things again toward 15, and once at the front I promptly lost contact with the map and led the group in a merry little swamp dance for a bonus 1.5 minutes. Oops. The group splintered a little bit after that, and I finalized my decision to skip #20 - in this race, you can skip one (and only one) control. In hindsight, 24 was a much better skip, especially considering I really didn't have any more gears to kick into for the extra trail run I'd given myself. Even worse, I took a wrong turn at a trail junction, costing myself an extra 2.5 minutes. Once back on the right track, I ran into Bridget and Kristin and Tyra, who had just punched control 20, which I had skipped.

So of course, I bluffed, and ran past at full speed. Kristin yelled to Tyra "go with Alex!" and Tyra followed. Damn. Luckily, she fell for my bluff of running faster, and as we started uphill to 21 she took the lead, and I started walking. My evil hope was that Tyra would have run too fast and would thus make a mistake in the circle and I'd get ahead. This worked, but I also made a mistake in the circle, wandering around too high up the hill for two minutes before figuring it out, now behind Kristin and Bridget again (but Tyra was even higher on the slope).

Anyway, at that point the writing was on the wall. They all skipped #24, which I had to go visit, and I eventually limped into the finish thoroughly beaten and broken, three minutes back and in fifth place. All told, I dropped about 16 minutes (MINUTES! I normally measure mistakes in seconds!) over the course of the race. That was embarrassing and humbling, but the good news was that my knee held up ok, and my fitness wasn't as atrocious as I had expected. It was a good hard race, fast and fair, and I really enjoyed battling it out with that pack. Next year, I'll be smarter.

The Sisters-Billygoat double

Two of my favorite races fell on the same weekend this year: 7 Sisters trail race was on Saturday, and the Billygoat was on Sunday, at Ward Pound Ridge. The good news was they were on separate days! Sorry, body, you didn't actually need to walk on Monday, right?

7 Sisters Trail Race
This race is amazing. It packs the vertical relief of Mount Washington into 11 miles or so, with nearly every step requiring finesse and agility. The uphills are steep enough that you have to hike, often using your hands to pull yourself up rock faces, and the downhills are best described as a barely-contained tumble. As far as I'm concerned, this is about as good as it gets!

I actually targeted this race, focusing on the uphills and the downhills with the only easily-accessible vertical on my commute - Harvard Stadium. I was starting to feel pretty good about my fitness, and then I actually rested properly leading up to the race. Morning of the race, I felt good, and knew that despite the wet weather, this could be a very good day. My plan for the race was to start conservatively, let the speedsters take off, and run my own race. It's a long enough race that I wanted to save something for the return trip, and after getting completely depleted last time I ran this (protip: don't throw your food to the side of the trail because you think your water bottle belt is too bouncy), I had a feeding strategy and planned to stick with it.

Part of my tapering plan was to get a massage, which was dearly needed. Sam Peck is a master. But thanks to my crazy schedule, the only time I could get in was on Thursday, and that was a little too close to the race. I decided to go with it anyway, but that was a mistake - I could feel the sore bits as the race went on, and really just needed one more day in there. Argh, I hate preventable mistakes!

The second preventable mistake I made was to swap my shoes at the last minute. I had been planning to go with the X-Talon225s, an awesome racing shoe that I use for pretty much everything. They're hands-down my favorite Inov-8 shoe. But, I made the mistake of also bringing the TrailTalon250s to the race, and suddenly I had given myself choices. And we all know that before a race, if you have choices to make, you will agonize over those choices, and then you will probably pick the wrong thing. In this case, it wasn't wrong per se, because the TrailTalons had phenomenal grip and I have been doing a lot of my long runs in them. But, because they have a little more room in the toe box, I wanted to make sure that my feet wouldn't slide around at all, so I cinched down the laces way too tight. Like waaay too tight.

I've done this before. It's a bad idea. You'd think I'd have learned my lesson.

We took off and as predicted, Kehr and Kelsey were off the front and a couple others followed them. I found myself in 6th place, with a couple other girls getting pushy, but they didn't seem very confident on the rocks, so I knew they wouldn't last. I felt pretty good and light up that hill, but cresting the top I discovered that my shoes were too tight, and that was making my calves cramp worse than usual. A smart person would have stopped and loosened her shoes. Did I do that? Noooo.

We started to catch the end of the elite men's wave on that first climb. and it was nice to be passing people. I wanted to throttle back the effort a bit, but was struggling to do so. When I finally passed Ed, who had hiked out to the low point to cheer, I was settling into more of a rhythm. Hike the uphills, generally with hands on knees (gotta put that extra skier weight to use somehow), tumble down the hills. I was going back and forth with a couple guys at this point, who were generally better on the ups and I was better on the downs. This is how it goes for me.

At the Summit House road, I was 2 minutes behind my 2014 split. I was more depressed by this than I'd anticipated. Even with the tight calves and muddy trail, I'd felt like my training was more than good enough to make up for that. How had I gotten so slow? I couldn't speed up much more without paying the consequences later, so maybe my training hadn't been as good as I thought. Maybe age is starting to catch up. Maybe I could have been actually pushing a little harder. But then I lifted my gaze as I climbed up to the Summit House and saw a female figure disappearing over the crest - that's 4th place up there! Maybe I can catch her on the downhill.

After a welcome walk across the porch (forced by race organizers), where I tried to drain my bottle and rest the calves, we were into my favorite part - the sustained downhill to the turn-around. It's not only downhill, there are a couple lumps along the way, but it's all technical and all awesome. I quickly caught up to the 4th place woman, and had a partner in the descent as a guy in a Tough Mudder shirt was keeping pace, and this was nice actually. The front of Wave 1 was catching me by now, but not that many of them. Eventually I started seeing the leaders coming back, and then Kelsey, then Leah, and finally Kehr, touchable but only with a massive effort. I hit the turn-around about a minute behind 2014, and thought, maybe I can make that up on the return! Silly me.

I actually did feel really good climbing back to the Summit House. I was keeping pace with a guy in a red shirt, and only two guys from Wave 1 passed me, so that was good news. My calves were still tight, but not exploding anymore, but I was starting to notice my heels - almost like they were falling asleep, but not really, more like they were just starting to ache really badly on the bottoms. Again, a smarter person would have stopped to loosen her shoes. At this point I certainly had the leeway.

The wheels started to really fall off after crossing the road. My butt was so sore, it just wasn't working anymore, and it turns out you can't just use your triceps instead of your glutes. My calves hurt, my heels hurt, my quads hurt. By the time I hit the low point, it was sheer survival. The bottom of my heels were in sheer agony. Again, all I had to do was stop and loosen the damn shoes. I tried to drown out the pain with positive mantras. "I'm so strong!" on the uphills, "this is fun!" on the downhills. Over and over and over. The final two climbs up Hitchcock and Bare Mountain I actually wasn't sure if I could take another step. I dropped an additional 6 minutes to my 2014 self from the road crossing back to the finish, and all I could think about was how excited I was to sit down and take off my shoes.

Upon actually taking off my shoes, I found I couldn't stand. Ed carried me back to the car, and over the course of the next hour or two I tried to relearn how to stand, walk, and move around. I've never been so hobbled after a race. It was terrible, and it was entirely my own fault. This doesn't take away from the awesomeness that is Sisters, it just ensures that I'll be back, to try for that elusive 2:20 again.

Post-race leg-soak in Puffers Pond was heavenly. And frigid. 

The Billygoat
Overnight brought no relief. I didn't really sleep at all, the pain in my feet keeping me tossing and turning as though maybe if I lie on this side my feet will hurt less. Come morning I still couldn't stand. Last night I'd sort of been able to tiptoe around, this morning my arch muscles were in as much pain as my heels, so tiptoeing brought no relief. 400mg of ibuprofen with breakfast got me to the point where I could lurch to the car, and I decided that this wasn't the sort of pain that was likely to cripple me long term, so I'd better just take some more ibuprofen and do the race. I really badly wanted to win the ugly billygoat doorstopper back. And you can't win a race if you don't even start it.

Another 800mg and I got through a short warmup test jog. The pain was now at a level where it just felt like a dull ache, no more stabbing. Let's do this thing! We started off, and I immediately felt the effects of doing neither a cooldown yesterday nor a warmup today. Those legs were STIFF. Everybody was running off, and I was left in what felt like the dust. But I focused on being efficient, and despite climbing up that first hill at snail pace, I found myself a loose group of Jeff, Andis, and Keegan for the first controls. This was a good group!


I then decided to abandon my reliable group and strike out on my own to 5, going left on a trail, that gave me bonus climbing, bonus mountain-laurel-bashing, and bonus cliff-scaling. That cost me about 4 minutes, and now I was alone and depressed. My everything still hurt, and I knew Izzy had a big lead, and I kind of just wanted to sit on a rock and listen to the birds. When I saw a pheasant flapping away from me I knew nobody had passed through in a while, and got even more glum. Figured it was about time Izzy won one of these things, anyway. Too much hubris to think I could do both a tough trail race and a tough orienteering race in one weekend. I'm getting old, need my recovery, don't have the snap that I used to.

About three controls of wallowing later, I finally started to pick up some runners. That lifted my spirits enough to pick up the pace a little, and I managed to get back into the game. As I headed to #9 I saw Izzy leaving it, and from the direction she was going, I figure she was skipping #10. In this race, you're allowed to skip a single control, which adds a different element of strategy to it. Seeing Izzy skip 10 firmed my decision to skip 14, which looked about equal in its skippability. Gotta try something different, see if it'll lead to an advantage. Like that, the competitive embers stirred, and the flames began to grow. This race isn't over yet.

I started to run a little more aggressively and moved up through the pack. The thing I love about the Billygoat is that I pretty much know everybody who is racing it. Definitely one of my favorite communities, that I wouldn't trade for anything. By the time I finally got to #13 and headed off towards #15, confident in my skip choice, I was feeling a lot better about my placement. I'd been steadily moving up, and had a long trail run ahead of me. My body was cooperating, the sun was shining, life was great.

At 15, I ran into both Izzy and Kseniya. Yay! Contact made! I relaxed a little, to try and recover, knowing that at some point, somebody would attack, and I wanted to make sure I could match it. We were together, with a few men in our pack, until about control 21. We had a long trail run then, and I decided to stretch the rubberband a bit and see what happened. It wasn't quite enough, but I could see that my trail running was a little stronger. We converged on 23 again, and then Kseniya got a bit of a gap coming down a steep rocky slope in the woods. She hit the trail by the river and accelerated, and I knew that this could be decisive if I didn't cover it. Definitely burned a match to close down the gap, but that had been a bluff - I could see her fatigue as we hit 24. Her attack had dropped Izzy, and I knew that with a mostly-uphill finish on trails and fields, things were in my favor. I took the uphill side of the wall leaving 24, which was more packed-down than Kseniya's side, and this gave me a few seconds. We hit the trail, up a hill, and I gave it some oomph, determined to not look back. I couldn't tell if the footsteps behind me were the West Point cadet or Kseniya, so I kept driving. One final uphill through the field, and as I turned 90 degrees to head to the finish I risked a look, and saw a comfortable gap. Phew!

I was very proud of the end of that run. It had been a mental game from the beginning, and came down to determination and motivation. I was very pleased to have been able to summon the oomph that I needed near the end. And, I hit all my goals of the race:

1. Finish, in under 3.5 hours
2. Beat Ed
3. Win the women's race

So I collected the ugly doorstopper for another year, as well as a delicious victory pie. A great end to a tough weekend.

Monday felt a little creaky, but my heels appear to be recovering, and by Tuesday I could run. So glad this isn't permanent damage!

The 38th Annual Billygoat

The Billygoat is one of my favorite orienteering races. Mass start, goofy rules, low-key event that people all take way too seriously - it's awesome. This was one of the first events I did as I came back to orienteering after a hiatus to race only on skis, and the camaraderie, goofiness, and fundamentally hard-core-ness hooked me. But after years of running in the event (and winning it the last three years!), Ed and I decided it was time to host it. Wearing our NEOC hats, we set the course in Townsend State Park, recently mapped for a national meet. I enjoyed setting these courses - parts of Townsend are utterly glorious, mature oak forest with long sightlines and knobbly contour features, just enough rock to interest you without being so overwhelming as to slow you down. But then there is the dark side of Townsend - the parts of the forest infested with mountain laurel. This is a very pretty plant to look at, but it's the bane of anyone trying to run through the woods, as its gnarled woody stems don't provide any way to pass through. At least it is easily mapped and thus easily avoided.

With only one course to worry about, I had the chance to design a kick-ass goat skull logo. It was only fitting that the skull rest on a wreath of laurels... 

The day dawned with a 90% chance of rain, but thanks to statistics, we ended up with barely a drizzle, and even a little sunshine for awards! I couldn't have asked for anything better. I had designed the courses such that we had a very long walk to the start, but I figured it was better to have people march out to the good terrain off the clock. Only a little bit of grumbling ensued. Isabel Bryant, speedy CSU junior, had volunteered to help carry all the clothing back from the start, and it was quite a load, as everyone had brought rain jackets and things. Turns out, 100 rain jackets actually take up a lot of space. 

I decided to run the Pygmy Goat, the short version of the Billygoat, after I got everyone started. I wanted to see some of the race from on-course, and this was an excellent way to do it. I got a chance to cheer on some of the folks who are normally further back than my group of runners, and I got a chance to cheer for the lead pack of runners on the Billygoat, as they looped through the Pygmy Goat course. Ed was manning the results, and did his usual superb job. 

2nd place, Will Enger, flew out here from Seattle just for the race!


Teammate Ian Smith, appeared to have found some mud...


Women's winner Hilary Saeger. It was a close race between the first two ladies, with Hilary just catching Kseniya on the long trail run portion to the finish.


Kseniya, second place for the women


Pizza was a good idea. When we ran out, I ordered more for the later finishers, and that was also a good idea. Ari came back from the dead to run the race, and he apparently survived, with no ill effects that we can tell.


I was so psyched that the sun could come out long enough to dry things out, and give folks a chance to do what orienteers do best - analyze the course to death. It was agreed that the leg from 15-16 had the sexiest terrain out there. It warms a race director's heart when people truly appreciate the course you've set. Makes the whole thing worth it. This race had all my favorite parts of directing orienteering events, and none of the parts I don't like.


More map analysis.


World Famous Sharon Crawford coming in hot, and earning yet another Billygoat teeshirt. Sharon has got to be the most competitive septuagenarian I know. I can only hope that I am running and skiing as strongly  as Sharon when I'm that age!

This was a fantastic race to direct, and I couldn't have done it without Ed. As usual, he takes my outlined ideas, barely cogent, and transforms them into something functional and beautiful. I suppose that's the role of an engineer. Will I host another Billygoat? Hopefully other people will take on the task for the next few years, but considering that this event embodies everything I love about this sport, I won't rule it out.

Billygoat 2015

The Billygoat is a really awesome orienteering race, with a fair amount of history.  I've won it the last two years, at Baldwin Hill and Earl's Trails, and I was looking to repeat the title at Egypt Mills, in the Delaware Water Gap.  This was my ninth Billygoat over the years, and it remains one of my favorite orienteering races. Little touches like the traveling doorstop prize, the control codes initialed with your place from last year, the mass start aspect and the ability to skip a control - all these things combined with the generally camaraderie of the sport combine to make it a special race.  

It's always tempting to take long races like a fast-paced training run, but I'm racing the long distance at Worlds this year, which means pushing the pace I can go for a long race. The Billygoat is likely a smidge longer and hillier than the Scottish Long Final is going to be, but it would still be good practice to take it out with some intensity.  Heading to the first two controls I was just behind the lead pack of guys, which always looks larger than it ends up being because of a heavy influx of West Point cadets, who are traditionally much stronger runners than navigators, and tend to get lost later in the race. Hannah Culberg, one of my US Teammates, was just behind me at 2, so my hope was to catch a faster ride from the guys and she wouldn't also hop the train. Unfortunately, I then made the wrong decision on the "forked" control - you could go to either third control, as shown on the map - and I chose the control that added a bunch of climb and a bunch of unmapped raspberry bushes. Ouch!

The bad #3 combined with a poor execution of my route to 4 set me back 2-3 minutes from Hannah and the pack of men I wanted to be running with.  I knew that things hadn't gone swimmingly, and set out chasing, hard.  There were some lovely open stretches of forest in the area from controls 5-10, and I took advantage of the lack of undergrowth to stretch my legs out and claw back some time.  By the aid station at 13, I got a split that I was about a minute behind, which was helpful information. I was still feeling good, energetic and springy, so I figured I'd better use this energy while I had it, and upped the pace. Around here you can see in the splits where I start pulling back some time from the men, too. Pays to be fit.  

(Click for full map with route choices)

I caught sight of Hannah as she was leaving 14, which was a relief. I figured that she hadn't skipped a control yet (you can skip one, and only one, control at the Billygoat), but I could probably fall in behind her for a bit and catch my breath before attacking again.  My plan was to skip #18, though in retrospect 22 would have been a much better skip.  Anyway, I made contact along the way to 16, and quickly discovered that I really had just been moving faster. We didn't exchange many words, just sort of offered each other support, but both of us had fallen into the pace we were using for the race, and I took the lead and opened a gap. I was on my own again after skipping 18, since she was clearly saving her skip for a later control.

Knowing that she was skipping later kept the pressure on.  I had to keep running like she was ahead of me, even as my legs started to notice the fatigue of the last hour and a half of hard running through terrain.  It was a struggle to keep moving up the hill through thick brush to 22, but I knew even in a long race, things can come down to seconds.  It turns out that Hannah did skip 22, and if she hadn't bungled the approach to 23, we likely would have been neck and neck at the finish.  That would have made things considerably more painful, but as it was, I was in the clear for the run-in, and in the lead.  Yay!

Thanks to Kseniya for the above photos. I was pretty tired by the end, but it felt like a really successful race, and I was psyched with the confidence with which I was attacking controls. My legs felt great, which is a nice change. And now I get to keep that ugly doorstop for one more year!

Thanks to Clem for these photos.