More Cowbell route and report

I enjoy the three-hour Scrambles, but this year for several reasons I have had to focus on the 90-minute division. For Bellevue 2007, based on past years' results and my own experience at U-D last month, I felt that (assuming the CP spread turned out to approximate past years) I should be able to cover 10+ miles and accumulate roughly 500 points.

I don't use the string technique or any other relatively precise method of route planning. By now I am pretty familiar with the topography around Crossroads, so I start by eliminating all CPs I know I can't get to within the allotted time. I then design a loop that should bring me back to the EC comfortably within the time limit. I make sure to leave a few CPs close to the EC to do at the end, in case I come back substantially earlier than anticipated. Also, as a general rule I don't make a special effort to get any 10-point CPs. Unless I'm going to be passing within a block or so anyway, I leave them alone.

For Bellevue, I immediately ruled out all CPs west of 140th, including 51. I could also see that I would never get to 53 or 35. It didn't seem worth the effort to climb the hill just to get 25, so that was out, too. Finally, I saw no way to get to 12 without sacrificing my ability to cover CPs of greater value.

To me the obvious loop with the remaining CPs either started west along 8th or north along 156th. My initial inclination was to go north, probably because that's the way I've started each of the past two years. Then I realized that starting west gave me a better margin for error, whether I returned earlier or later than expected. I planned to hit 24 right off the bat, but to leave all the other CPs around the EC (90 points total) for the end. The loop I plotted would net me 510 points, with the possibility of an additional 110 if I badly overestimated how long it would take to complete the basic loop.

Once the Scramble began, I hit 24 as planned and then had to wait for the light at the major intersection. My plan was to do 54 and then 26, but it happened that the light changed in such a way that I reversed those two. The number on the light pole for which one had to look straight up was a nice touch. I remember noting that it took me 10 minutes to get the first 90 points, and that it sure would be nice if the CPs allowed a person to keep getting them at that pace.

From 54 I went back to 8th Ave. and on out to 43. From there I cut through the middle school grounds to intersect the Lake-to-Lake trail, which took me directly past 31, 13, 52 and 42. From 42 I had to decide which way to circle Phantom Lake to reach 55. I ended up going counterclockwise, even though I knew that meant a bit of hill, because it seemed slightly shorter. I hit the big curve at the extreme southeast of the map almost exactly 45 minutes into the Scramble, which was my first reassurance that I was ahead of schedule. I could see Doug (of Team Nisqually) out ahead of me. We met up at 55 and ran together to 32, where we ran into Whidbey Island Nerds coming the other direction.

From 32 it was a relatively straight shot to 46 and 41. As I reached 8th Ave. again I had 30 minutes left, which was going to be more than enough to get those last 90 points around the EC, so I kept heading north and picked up 22. On the way, I told myself that if I had 20 minutes left by the time I got to 164th then I'd make a dash out and back to 45 before going to 34 and on the the EC. It was exactly 11:10 when I reached that point, so I picked up the pace while heading further north.

At 45 I ran into my family, Brain of Pooh, coming in the other direction. Since I was now on the opposite corner of a rectangle from 34 (the next CP I needed), I decided to risk heading for 11 but skipping it if I needed more than 10 seconds to figure out exactly where it was. As it happened, I found 11 immediately and also spotted a gravel path that cut off the corner between 24th and 156th, saving me perhaps 20-30 seconds.

I had 13 minutes left as I headed south, which meant I could not get out to 44 and back without risking the 90 I still had to do near the EC. Instead I went straight down 156th to 34 (overshot it by twenty yards but recovered), then across the parking lots to 22 (slight confusion over blue vs. blue-green signs). I had four minutes left at that point, which gave me just time to get out to 33 and then hit 15 in the final fifty yards before turning in my answer sheet with slightly under two minutes left.

In reviewing the map afterward, I feel that, at the pace I was traveling that day, I would have needed another 10 minutes to improve by 40 points. It's not apparent to me that I could have designed a more efficient route that would have given me a better score.

John Zobel

10.87 miles
350' elevation gain (same amount of loss)
580 points

Raw route: 24-26-54-43-31-13-52-42-55-32-46-41-22-45-11-34-23-33-15