xRedRocks Challenge Day 1 2024-09-25

Day 1 task:

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For the first day of the xRedRocks, the task begin at Cove, with a ground turnpoint around the town of Joseph, and an end of speed section/goal at the base of the V. There were two strategies that jumped out immediately:

The first was to launch immediately, glide and tag the turnpoint close to the Monroe LZ, then hike back up the hill and launch cove when the day was on and fly to goal.

The second strategy was to take off from Cove, glide to the optimized turnpoint on the Joseph cylinder and land, then run to the goal. Looking at the optimize road route, it would be 13 miles following the main highway through Richfield then heading east to goal.

I hiked Cove with Damon, Muuo and Joey on Sunday before the race week, and I knew that with the altitude and elevation of the hike it would take me roughly 2-2:30 hours to hike up to launch. Given my ground run paces in traning up to the comp, I knew that I could run between a 10 to 11 minute mile with the pack if I pushed at roughly the same effort as going up cove. Going up cove also meant taking a risk to fly to goal - it wouldn’t be guaranteed that once you are up there, the day would be on and working, and that you could fly all of the way to goal.

Given the two options, it seemed to me that running to goal would take roughly the same amount of time as hiking Cove and flying. The difference is that flying out e much more risky. If I bombed, I would have to run anyways. I decided to run it. I knew though if other folks ran it, every minute would count in getting to goal. Saving 10 minutes could be a mile on course line, which is a decent gap over a 13 mile run.

The day before, I had organized a trip to fly Junction, and afterwards we had the kickoff meeting for the xRedRocks. I ended up starting my prep at 10:00 p.m. I packed my wing all nice and loaded up a Ziploc of M&Ms, sour patch kids, and salt tablets. Finally, I took everything out of my pack except for the bare essentials. I even left my hiking poles out.

The day of the race, we set up about three switchbacks below the launch of Cove, and Gavin sent us off. Right off the bat I chose to red line it up the hill. I knew that a 15 minute all out effort was something that I could recover from in the air on glide. I stayed with the front six or seven folks (all pros plus Keaton) up to launch. When I got to launch, I executed my fastest unpack and prep of all time, and I was the third to launch off the hill. I glided straight for the point on the map I had picked out as an LZ, and I tucked in as much as I could to reduce drag. I think the winds were still slightly katabatic, so I got a super smooth glide at nearly 12:1. I needed to spiral down at the end. I was going to land in an unirrigated patch of an irrigated fields, but as I was coming down I saw the tractor driving nearby, so I instead landed on the far side of the fields next to the road. There was a barbed wire fence on the side of the field. I landed in the strip of grass between the fence and the road, and put it down beautifully, but my wing draped itself over the barbed wire fence. I had flashbacks to when I threw my reserve and came down on top of the barbed wire fence on Mission. Despite my race for time, I very delicately plucked my wing from its thorny grasp. After extracting it, I plopped down in the side of the road shrubbery to pack up my wing. I kept repeating to myself, “ground pound, doesn’t matter” as I stuffed my wing without any care into my bag.

Right as I was finishing packing up, Joey landed on the opposite side of the barbed wire fence. As he started to pack up, I offered to run together. I told him that I was going to start running, but I would go slow and wait for him. I made good on my word and held back for the first mile or two, but he never caught up, so I forged on a head alone.

I tried to maintain a roughly aerobic to slightly above aerobic pace for the whole run. The first half took me along the main highway into richfield, during which I called my mom to catch up (I owed her a call). After that I called Maggie, and chatted with her and her mom for an hour. We talked as I ran through the town of Richfield, ignoring all traffic signs and sprinting through intersections. When the road turned east, I let Maggie get back to work, and I put on some music.

I had just started to run out of water, and my mouth was so dry that I couldn’t eat anything without it. Fortunately, my route took me by a canal. I had my water filter in my bag, so I stopped briefly to fill that up, splash my face with water, and dunk my headband. I didn’t spend any time transferring water to my bladder, but instead chugged as much as I could while running. I think I put down about a liter.

From there, I was basically in goal. The whole time I had been watching live tracking, and I saw that the Cove route wasn’t working out. Damon and Kevin were behind me running by ~2 miles. Joey was there too, but even farther. I later found out that he had to make a bathroom stop in Richfield which put him far behind. Instead of slowing down at the end, I chose to keep up the pace, and I ran the last two miles at the same pace I had been going, knowing that no one would catch up to me. It was such a fantastic feeling to know that I was going to win day one, and I basked in it for that time. When I got to goal, the organizers were just setting up the tents, and I grabbed water, electrolyte drinks, and an apple. While waiting for the other competitors, I unpacked my wing, started checking for damage, then repacked it nicely into my bag.