Orienteering (Great Falls MD - Long Adv) 1:56:46 [3] 10.5 km (11:07 / km) +291m 9:46 / km
ahr:145 max:180
Wow this was long. But really fun.
So it was nice to run while it wasn't raining, for a change.
The first 8 controls went by really quick for me. I made a small mistake on #3, by going north instead of more east, I'm not sure what happened. But once I hit the trail I realized I was off, then I checked my compass and realized I did a 90 degree error, and I relocated fairly quickly.
I really liked the leg from 5 to 6, it was really nice and fast for running. It was a fun one.
Then from 8 to 9 I slowed down a bit, because of the hills. Going to 10 I got a little confused with the contours, as I wasn't cure what was a spur and what was a reentrant, but I figured it out soon, I only lost between 30 sec ans 1 min.
But 13 and 14. Oh man. That was bad.
Going to 13, I wanted to contour around the hill west of 9/12, and contour all the way to the west spur on which was 13. But I didn't go far enough, and I went down the spur with 14. I realized it when I got to the end of the flatter area of the spur (almost a hilltop, but not quite, there's this turn in the spur), I thought I was in the area of #13, but the I saw the spur a little lower that branches off of the big spur I was on. I thought that little spur was a different spur that was similar, but higher up (but I'll get to that when I talk about #14). So, I cross the reentrant, and find 13 no problem.
Since I thought I knew where to go, I went back the way I came, and looked for 14. I thought the light green was the dashed green 14 was on, so I was trying to figure out why I just can't see the control anywhere. The I noticed that there are two smaller spurs going off of the big one on the west side, one lower and one higher, and that I was at the lower one, which I didn't realize before. So I finally noticed I was too low, and that on my way to 13 I must've passed the control without seeing it, so I went back up and found it.
Then it was pretty smooth for a while, until #19, my only control with a split over 10 minutes. I was going from above, and I was on the correct spur, but when I saw the erosion gullies, I stayed too much to the left (west), so I ended up too low, and I figured that, so I went up a bit, I got to the area with the three rootstocks just left of 19. I wasn't sure where I was, and by then I just wanted to finish, I was so tired. It was quite hard to focus, but I tried, and it took me a while to realize that I shouldn't be trying to look at the contours around me or look for the pits I see on the map , but I should find where I was on the map using the rootstocks I was standing next to for the past few minutes. So after, like, 20 meters going to the east, I find the control.
The rest was smooth. I tried to run as much as I could, but I was tired. I still managed a bit. The only time loss from navigation was on 23, where I came onto the spur too low, but not by much. I probably only lost about 10 or 20 seconds.
I really liked this course, and even though it killed me, I had a lot of fun and I'm glad I did it. But yeah I should work on shorter courses so I could do more fast navigation. I just haven't done a really long course in a while and I kinda missed it, and I'm really glad that I could run as much as I did. I was basically mostly (except for maybe some of the last 1/4, and when I was lost) running on flat and downhill, but walking uphill, since I've already some running today.