orienteering race 25:46 [4] *** 2.7 km (9:33 / km) +80m 8:19 / km
14c weight:157lbs shoes: Icebugs
Its a scary thing when the Course Setter names his sprint courses after notorious gangsters. "Scarface" was the first and longest of 3 short races at Twin Creek Metropark set by Tom Svobodny. Gullies and thickets made these a little tougher physically than many sprints, and although Tom did quite a bit of updating to the 1:10,000 map, its reincarnation at 1:5000 still was a little short of ISSOM. Not a bad map, but when you're sprinting, you notice when the grammar are slightly off.
The second scary thing was the weather, 15 degrees F (-9 C), and the first two legs were straight acoss open fields into the teeth of of a wind that reached 30 mph (50 km/hr) at times. And, because the previous days had been much warmer, the field was pocked with many nice puddles of icy water.
Be afraid... be very afraid...
orienteering race 22:35 [4] *** 2.57 km (8:47 / km) +85m 7:32 / km
13c shoes: Icebugs
"Bugsy" was the second course of the day. Same first control as "Scarface". Probably my cleanest run of the day, with only one control giving me a little hesitation.
orienteering race 19:07 [4] *** 1.82 km (10:30 / km) +75m 8:43 / km
9c shoes: O T Blaze III
There was nothing kinder or gentler about the hand that set "Machine Gun", and it didn't help that I was feeling overconfident when I started. The wind kicked up just as I punched start and set off to the same number one control used by "Scarface" and "Bugsy", and I was a full 15 seconds slower than on "Bugsy", mainly due to fighting the wind. Also, I discovered that going right of a waterhole which I had gone left of on the previous two courses led me splashing through more puddles than the other side. Brrrr.
On the way to #2, my epunch finger was going so numb that I pulled off the punch and just carried it in my compass hand for the duration of the course. Number 2 was my worst mistake of the day. I didn't go quite far enough, stopped 20m before the control and backtracked enough to bounce off #7 (75m away), before returning and looking farther ahead. Dumb, dumb, dumb. Or maybe just numb. After that, pretty clean except for a little bobble on #5.
walking 20:00 [1] *** 1.0 mi (20:00 / mi)
picked up 3 controls at Twin Creek.