Orienteering race 1:41:41 [4] 7.5 km (13:33 / km) +220m 11:49 / km
shoes: Icebug olx 2nd
QOC Fountainhead Red. Second visit to this park this season, and there's a third in store, but the park is big enough for 3 almost non-overlapping maps. The terrain is good and the forest is really nice.
The first 8 controls went great. Then things began to fall apart, and it was clearly due to loss of concentration. I had been reading the map exceptionally well (for me, anyway) but as I reflect on the last 6 controls, I realize that I wasn't looking at the map as often, and missed a lot of detail when I did look at it.
The short leg 8-9 should have been easy, but I messed it up, staying way too low and not seeing deeply enough into the reentrant when I crossed it. Went to the next reentrant, and relocated back to the stream (only a few steps away). Next, I overran 11, losing track of which spur and reentrant I was crossing, pretty basic. Then a truly wretched job to 12, not thinking at all, just wandering all over the place and identifying occasional random features.
I mispunched at 13, took a terrible route to 14 (both controls beginner-level), finished and downloaded, saw the mispunch, and went back and did 13 and 14 again just to set the record straight. Edit: what do you know, on the retry, I got the fastest split on 14. Fast, but dumb. Takes me two tries to get a simple control right.
Somehow I have to catch the stupidity before it really sets in. I've noticed before that it's almost always around the 8th control where I start to lose it. Need to set an alarm to jolt me awake on the 8th punch.