Here is the Lehigh University Sprint, TT08 M21 map, and here are my routes.

Here is the Hickory Run Middle, TT08 M21 map, and here are my routes.

Here is the South Mountain Long, TT08 M21 map, and here are my routes.

I set the day 1 sprint at Lehigh University, an absolutely stunning venue for a sprint, IMHO. The bags seemed to be in the right place, and the weather was perfect, so what more do you need? I think a monkey throwing darts at a map could have set a fun sprint here; I hope I did better, but I certainly did not do optimally. j-man said I "set the sprint that had to be set here", and I'll admit I tried to give a decent dose of all the venue had to offer within the constraints of a sprint. I don't think the map does justice to how visually incredible this area is for a sprint, and perhaps someone else will give it a go next spring.

The biggest disappointment was the construction on leg 6-7 (M21), which took out the route choice, and I rather liked that leg for a few reasons. Had I known about that before the maps were printed, perhaps that whole section could have been avoided/redone for a more intense experience elsewhere, as an unsafe wall in that section of campus also necessitated some boring course setting, and given that I wanted to do 10-11 for some various reasons, did dictate too much of the routing over there.

Regarding WT, my model indicated 18:00. Superman came in at 18:03, which in some sense vindicates the model, but exposes the assumption which lead to an actual WT miss of 11%, or 2 minutes. My model assumed every leg run optimally by the winner (ala superman), but it doesn't work that way. Oh well, I feel bad about the WT miss, and I hope those who care about these things are not bothered too much.

I didn't expect to run the other two days, but I was there, and managed to after all. I enjoyed the middle course; Hickory Run is still probably my favorite map, or one of them, and this is the best section. I had an ursine encounter at #8, which rattled me for #9 such that I spiked the control, but thought the code was wrong, and bungled around for a minute before my mind cleared and I was able to visualize the control and check the code again in my mind and go back to it. Outside of that and a mild boom of #6, a run I was happy with.

I didn't enjoy the long as much, but it certainly wasn't as a result of course setting or mapping, both of which were fine, more the fact that I simply don't care for that sort of terrain -- too physical to be fun. I had been on the field work, so I knew what it was like, and I wanted to run M40, but when you show up unregistered you take what you can get, so I was on a tough M21 course, after not being prepared to race after all the meet work. Had I carb loaded and hydrated properly, I might have enjoyed it more. It also didn't help that I injured myself early in the race.

As it turned out, I spiked all but 3 or 4 controls, and the total boom time was less than 2 minutes or so, but some of my route planning and execution was a disaster. I mean laughable. I wasn't prepared to race, was injured, and it showed on some legs. All and all a fine course, but a bit more than I was ready for.

Oh well, thank god its over. I think I'll start thinking about course setting again sometime around 2011.