FFigawi
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Dec 28, 2009
- Messages
- 6,657
Laz was not happy with this year's Barkley runners
barkley debriefing
.
to say the course won this year is an understatement.
and since the smoke cleared,
revealing a battlefield littered with the corpses of hubris and overconfidence
i have been thinking back over the past year
and especially the past week
seeking to understand what went wrong…
.
and i came out with some definite opinions about what triggered the massacre of 2025.
that doesn’t mean i am right
but i think the cat *** trophies of 2025 can be greatly attributed to a few mistakes
repeated by a lot of athletes.
.
sure, the course got tweaked.
it gets tweaked every year.
and i knew going in that this was a difficult barkley course.
but, while it had a little more climb
it was also shorter.
i was actually not certain we would not have another mass finish!
but in the leadup to the race i saw errors being committed that lowered my optimism for the field.
.
until it took on a life of its own.
“follow a veteran”
.
better to develop your own navigational skills.
how do you know the veteran you follow did not become a veteran by following veterans?
and even if you latch on to someone with serious navigation skills
if they leave you out in the woods,
all that happened was that they led you a long way from safety
and the main thing you learned was what the right direction looks like
when someone’s *** is in the middle of it!
.
that one is so stupid we arent even going to allow it next year.
first, it is going to be nearly impossible to mark the checkpoints accurately from a phone picture.
if you make it small enough to see where the mark is,
you cannot tell the exact location.
if you make it large enough to see the exact location,
you cannot see enough of the whole map to see where it goes.
and exact placement of the checkpoint locations is critical!
second, what everyone lost was the discussion that normally goes on around the master map.
following a veteran might be a fools errand.
having them tell you what to look for when locating checkpoints
or selecting your routes
can be worth its weight in gold.
.
which gets back to navigation
and the checkpoints.
i don’t think the athletes realized how critical it is to:
mark the checkpoints accurately
navigate to them.
.
great pains are taken to place the marks on the exact location of the checkpoint.
and i think many of the athletes with rudimentary navigation skills
are unable to look at the map and exactly visualize a location.
contour lines are not merely a record of elevation change.
they are a picture of how the ground is configured.
.
what i kept hearing was;
“i shot a bearing”
shooting a bearing is the most rudimentary form of navigation.
.
if it is not pitch black night, or white-out fog i would not use a compass to navigate at frozen head.
i would look at the map and match the contours with my surroundings.
then, instead of a straight line through all obstacles i would pick the best route to reach my destination.
old trails and logging roads are easy to follow.
in the absence of human-made routes
if you look at the contours for the “easiest” route you are almost certain to find game trails going the same way.
animals always choose the easiest route to go from here to there,
that is how game trails are formed.
and game trails also take out a lot of the briars and undergrowth.
.
there is an additional benefit to following the contours.
you know what the ground should look like as you approach the location.
.
we heard a lot of known excellent navigators comment that they passed clusters of virgins “turning over every rock”
nowhere near the next checkpoint.
no amount of searching will help if you cannot identify the checkpoint locations!
.
going back and forth over the same ground.
then came home with a description that did not sound like they were ever in the vicinity of the actual checkpoint!
.
checkpoints are not “hidden”
they are not probably in plain sight,
and they have to be placed where hogs cannot get to them.
but the map markings and directions are intended to make them easy to locate.
in a race with zero margin for error,
i would not look more than 5 minutes before consulting the map.
find a nearby landmark that is easily identifiable.
or even a couple of more distant peaks that you can see…
.
if these do not match what you should see from the checkpoint,
then you are searching in the wrong place!
.
my conclusion about the weekend is not that kind.
but sometimes what you need to hear and what you want to hear are not the same.
barkley is out there on the edge of possibility.
but it is not impossible.
for most athletes the 100 is not going to be in their future.
the best ability, preparation, and execution might not be enough.
but most of them should have been able to knock out one loop under the time limit!
.
the 2025 field left a lot of cards on the table.
.
to say the course won this year is an understatement.
and since the smoke cleared,
revealing a battlefield littered with the corpses of hubris and overconfidence
i have been thinking back over the past year
and especially the past week
seeking to understand what went wrong…
.
and i came out with some definite opinions about what triggered the massacre of 2025.
that doesn’t mean i am right
but i think the cat *** trophies of 2025 can be greatly attributed to a few mistakes
repeated by a lot of athletes.
.
sure, the course got tweaked.
it gets tweaked every year.
and i knew going in that this was a difficult barkley course.
but, while it had a little more climb
it was also shorter.
i was actually not certain we would not have another mass finish!
but in the leadup to the race i saw errors being committed that lowered my optimism for the field.
.
- taking bad advice.
until it took on a life of its own.
“follow a veteran”
.
better to develop your own navigational skills.
how do you know the veteran you follow did not become a veteran by following veterans?
and even if you latch on to someone with serious navigation skills
if they leave you out in the woods,
all that happened was that they led you a long way from safety
and the main thing you learned was what the right direction looks like
when someone’s *** is in the middle of it!
.
- take a picture of the map,
that one is so stupid we arent even going to allow it next year.
first, it is going to be nearly impossible to mark the checkpoints accurately from a phone picture.
if you make it small enough to see where the mark is,
you cannot tell the exact location.
if you make it large enough to see the exact location,
you cannot see enough of the whole map to see where it goes.
and exact placement of the checkpoint locations is critical!
second, what everyone lost was the discussion that normally goes on around the master map.
following a veteran might be a fools errand.
having them tell you what to look for when locating checkpoints
or selecting your routes
can be worth its weight in gold.
.
which gets back to navigation
and the checkpoints.
i don’t think the athletes realized how critical it is to:
mark the checkpoints accurately
navigate to them.
.
great pains are taken to place the marks on the exact location of the checkpoint.
and i think many of the athletes with rudimentary navigation skills
are unable to look at the map and exactly visualize a location.
contour lines are not merely a record of elevation change.
they are a picture of how the ground is configured.
.
what i kept hearing was;
“i shot a bearing”
shooting a bearing is the most rudimentary form of navigation.
.
if it is not pitch black night, or white-out fog i would not use a compass to navigate at frozen head.
i would look at the map and match the contours with my surroundings.
then, instead of a straight line through all obstacles i would pick the best route to reach my destination.
old trails and logging roads are easy to follow.
in the absence of human-made routes
if you look at the contours for the “easiest” route you are almost certain to find game trails going the same way.
animals always choose the easiest route to go from here to there,
that is how game trails are formed.
and game trails also take out a lot of the briars and undergrowth.
.
there is an additional benefit to following the contours.
you know what the ground should look like as you approach the location.
.
we heard a lot of known excellent navigators comment that they passed clusters of virgins “turning over every rock”
nowhere near the next checkpoint.
no amount of searching will help if you cannot identify the checkpoint locations!
.
- trying to brute force error correction.
going back and forth over the same ground.
then came home with a description that did not sound like they were ever in the vicinity of the actual checkpoint!
.
checkpoints are not “hidden”
they are not probably in plain sight,
and they have to be placed where hogs cannot get to them.
but the map markings and directions are intended to make them easy to locate.
in a race with zero margin for error,
i would not look more than 5 minutes before consulting the map.
find a nearby landmark that is easily identifiable.
or even a couple of more distant peaks that you can see…
.
if these do not match what you should see from the checkpoint,
then you are searching in the wrong place!
.
my conclusion about the weekend is not that kind.
but sometimes what you need to hear and what you want to hear are not the same.
barkley is out there on the edge of possibility.
but it is not impossible.
for most athletes the 100 is not going to be in their future.
the best ability, preparation, and execution might not be enough.
but most of them should have been able to knock out one loop under the time limit!
.
the 2025 field left a lot of cards on the table.
)
) I would do a 2-2.5 mile WU/CD with these.
