PSA -- some of the pictures are up now, and there are more than what pop up so hit the hard to see "show more" at the bottom. There are some really good pics of FOG and SLG. One of me in there looking tired but at least I think I'm actually running in that pic
Now, for the extremely wordy writeup:
It was great to put new faces with screen names, as well as see some familiar faces, and I even bump into one guy I knew at one of the stages when we realized we recognized each other (beards and dark glasses will do that). As SLG said, PF folks are good folks, and I had a great time hanging out before and after the actual event.
I'll allow others to out themselves but I finished 35th of 83 10k competitors. Breaking out the run/shoot, I was 22nd on the shooting and 48th on the running. I suppose I could take solace in being above the 50% mark overall but considering friends and PFers (not to be confused with MFers) covered 5 of the top 11 spots, it takes a little bit of the wind out of that sail...
This is not intended to be a complete AAR, just a bit of a mind-dump now that I’ve finally got a minute to sit down and spill some thoughts. (edit to add: it still got pretty long...)
Thoughts:
Venue -- Great spot. The hosts provided a lot of room spread out over a couple of sections and it’s pretty country. The sheriff (with kid in passenger seat, in friendly mode) cruised by as we ran on the county road. There was plenty of elevation change on the road sections to make them interesting, and the trails were more technical in spots with a few small creek crossings, a good mix of mossy rocks under loose leaves,
Weather -- it was really about perfect. Chilly in the morning, but warmed up quickly with the sun. I think noon was about the peak of warmth, as it did cloud up and the wind picked up around 2pm.
Timing -- With the staggered release of shooters, I was number 4 out the gate, so I took off while it was still chilly (I suspect the wind was a bigger factor for guys shooting later in the day, but it wasn’t as bad as the day before - it probably screwed with some of the ROs who ran the previous day). The whole event moved faster than expected, but I was back in time to see SLG before he left. My intel on water and ammo usage clearly shaved at least 20 minutes off his run time I can imagine during the summer that the difference between running at 9am vs. noon could be a significant difference.
Timing II: Fitbit Boogaloo -- I’m really glad I wore my fitbit because I was oblivious to the fact I’d need to keep track of my wait times. Using the workout timer to track wait times is good. Using the workout timer to track the run, then trying to do math in your head when you show up to a stage sucking wind from the run up a trail, is not good. I was told there would be no math...
Timing III --Starting early meant there wasn’t much wait time at the stages. A couple were no wait and none were longer than 6:xx minutes. I think the later guys were talking of approaching an hour wait on some of the stages? There are pros and cons to more/less wait time, but probably a sweet spot somewhere in the middle. 5 minutes to catch your breath and let the heart rate come down is probably better than 55 minutes to lose your momentum. With short waits I didn’t have much time to catch my breath before shooting - I won’t say it wrecked my shooting but it was harder than standing calmly at the range.
Guns:
Rifle -- Colt 6933 (11.5” factory SBR) with a 1-4x Accupoint, MI rail, Magpul plastic. It was the best combo of light weight and magnification I could put together with what I had at the house (it normally wears an aimpoint, and the accupoint lives on a heavier rifle). I could have shaved a couple more ounces by dropping the Redi-Mod and light (streamlight in a WOTG mount), but didn’t bother. It was still a lot lighter than my other rifle. Since you had to run the rifle empty, I should have asked if I could run with a mag in the Redimag - that would have sped things up at the stages as well (since you had to load at start of time). Sling was a padded Vickers attached to the outboard of the stock and muzzle end of the rail. I’m happy with the whole setup, and can’t pin any particular difficulties on it. I had a 1st round hit at 500 with it (we’ll ignore it took me a couple misses to get the next 2 hits, though ) After, the spotter said my misses were in the dirt in front of the target; I was having a little trouble with the hold over with the triangle on top of a post at that range.
Pistol -- Just a Gen4 Glock 19, which was also no problems. Stock, with 10-8 sights.
Ammo -- Federal XM193 in the brown boxes.
Ammo Management -- I screwed up twice by not getting my ammo situation squared away and re-staged after , which resulted in reloading on the clock. Not a huge deal except of my bag setup required a lot more effort turns a reload into a 10-15 second event. Once rifle, and once pistol. The pistol reload was especially painful because I had a pretty decent rhythm going and ran dry at the last plate on the dueling tree, and I knew it was coming because of miss/failure to swing earlier in the string (still my fault for having a miss, though).
Gear:
Load carriage -- I was all over the map with this up until the end. Final answer to was keep my belt slick except for a Raven OWB strong side, and then carry everything in a Maxpedition Kodiak S-type sling pack. I put one Tactical Tailor M4 shingle on the outside for quick access and stashed the other two mags where I could slide it to my left side and access them like a messenger bag (sorta). While this was a workable reload, it wasn’t as fast as a proper pouch on my body would have been - which ended up biting me a couple times... I also used my front left pocket for my half-empty rifle mag for much of the 2nd half and that worked surprisingly well.
The sling-type pack - probably not an ideal choice, but as I discovered if you’re slow enough it doesn’t flop, then it doesn’t matter. Or something like that. The small strap that stabilizes it helps a lot. Aside from the potential running issues, it worked well, in that I’m right handed up but choose the left-handed “S-type” setup so it slips to my left side to access left handed without hanging up on a strong side (or appendix) holster. During the longer movements (it seems unfair for me to call them “runs”, ) I slipped my sling to the left side and rolled the gun to tension against me, which put the pack on one shoulder and gun on the other.
Clothing - I didn’t do anything special here, I don’t have any special running gear or anything. I wore some of the lighter weight (not heavy cotton duck) Carhartt carpenter-type pants, a Nike dry-fit shirt, and cotton long-sleeve shirt over that. Wilderness frequent flier belt. A well-worn pair of Merrell Moab Ventilator Mids for shoes - these fill up with water faster than the Titanic if you step in a creek, but since it was warmer I took my chances, and kept them dry until the very last creek crossing before the finish. Also, I wore regular ol’ cotton socks and underwear - I have come to understand this is a faux pas. If this ever gets me “killed in da streets” I expect someone to take up a class-action suit against Haynes.
PPE -- I used “no roll” push-in type earplugs, which are easy to don/doff and still have good NRR rating. And weigh nothing. For eyepro, I got a nice set of M-frames for Christmas, which I left at home and wore my old Half-Jackets instead, because I prefer the VR28 lenses for cloudy or shady varying conditions - which there were a lot of running through the woods. However on at least two of the stages they fogged badly when I got down on the gun and I had to stop and flip them up to see.
Fitness and running -- Traditionally my idea of “conditioning” is using a 2-n-1 shampoo. This hurt me more than anything. I was pretty gassed halfway through the run to the first stage (which was one of the two longest stretches), and then did a lot of fast walking throughout the rest of the event; I would try to bump it back up to a jog and find I was jogging so slow it was just a really inefficient way of walking. I’ve always hated running/cardio type work. Prior to signing up in mid October I was on a very intermittent cardio schedule via indoor bike at the work gym (which itself was a pretty recent addition to my routine), and some very light bodyweight work at home in the evenings. I ticked up the cardio a bit after signing up and was pretty consistent on moving over to the treadmill at the work gym....for a few weeks. Was off work - and away from that gym - during the holidays, and had a round of bronchitis in there as well, been doing a little rowing machine work (a recent purchase) but it’s in the bedroom where my wife has been recovering from surgery, while i’ve been single-parenting in her absence...I’m full of excuses for this one, but they all stink. I knew coming in that the run component would suck at my level of (lack of) preparation. As a solo competitor I’m glad to have finished...as part of imaginary “Team Pistol-Forum” I’m dragging down the average. Nowhere to go but up from here!
Misc:
Water -- I carried too much. I drank 24oz but started with 64 IIRC. It was in bottles in my pack, rather than a camelback setup. I used the small 8oz bottles because they were easy to pack, grab, and avoid sloshing with half-empties. I ate light the night before and morning of, focusing on just being hydrated. I didn’t perceive any water- or food-related issues.
Post event -- I’ve been a little sore today, but not too bad. Lower shins and in my quads.
There’s plenty of minutia to discuss around gun and gear selection - like how the 500yd shot requirement starts driving the gun setup disproportionately vs. the other stages, or the finer nuances of belt setups vs. chest rigs while running, or a whole thread worth of AR sling methodologies.
Riffing off of something FOG (I think) said after dinner, one can -and many do - look at this as a “gear test” kind of event. However you run the risk of some false conclusions because perfectly good gear may not work ideally for this very specific competition. Likewise the ideal gear configuration for the competition is probably not the one any of us would choose if we knew we had to actually go shoot at commie invaders or whatever. Gear testing is fine; being hyper competitive is fine, and somewhere in between is fine -- you just have to keep your inputs and outputs correctly framed within the context of the event.
It’s good to have one’s ego crushed every now and again, right? Failure can be a powerful teacher and motivator. There’s the frequently-quoted (to the point of near cliché) statement about not rising to the occasion but defaulting to training, but still we often enter things like this hoping we’ll end up somehow doing better than we know we’re actually prepared to perform. I don’t think I came in with any unrealistic expectations - but I still wish I would have done better. But now I’ve got a great baseline assessment to build upon and use as motivation. It's not different that first time you went to a USPSA match, thought "oh i'm a pretty good shooter, right?" and then were blown away by the guys who've put in the work to be really good.
And last, but certainly not least, a big congrats to SLG and Bratch for their wins, and everyone else for putting put a really strong showing. You guys all kick ass.