Orienteering race (MidAtlantic Champs-Orange) 44:13 [3] *** 5.3 km (8:21 / km) +122m 7:29 / km
ahr:123 max:173
I feel like this was a somewhat harder orange course, mostly because of the unfamiliar terrain (since it was in the side of a hill for the most part). I had hoped to do a bit better than I did, but I'm not too disappointed.
I did a few mistakes, but just small ones that cost me about 4 mins total (not including the legs that I was just slow on).
First, on the first control I lost maybe 30 seconds or less by overshooting the correct trail and going an extra ~30 meters before cutting into the woods and turning back.
Then, on the second one, I just slowed down a bit when attacking the control, because I shot off the trail and didn't know exactly where I was, but thankfully after getting a rough estimate of my location and making a few steps I saw the control.
On the third leg I was quite slow, because I shot off into the correct direction, but without a specific plan of how to navigate, nor following the bearing I had set up (mainly just to keep me in the general correct direction, because I really need to practice more of following bearings). Thankfully, I kept on the correct spur, but I was afraid I was overshooting the control. However, I know that on some courses before I felt like that and in reality I wasn't nearly far enough, so I (thankfully) kept going and I found the control.
For the 4th control I followed the line of root stocks up. I had poor micro route choices, since I couldn't decide if I wanted to go on the left or right of the root stocks, so for the most part I just went through them. It wasn't horrible, but I could've saved some time and energy if I had been more decisive and made better micro route choices.
Then to 5, I drifted a bit too north/up, and I found a charcoal furnace that was northwest of my control. I didn't want to try and cut straight to the control, so I contoured over, trying to see the control, but I hit the trail and just decided to run down it.
To 6, oh god that hill. I really ought to run more hills, I have no endurance up hills. I ran a bit up it, then I just couldn't any more. I saw the charcoal furnace to the left of the trail, so I figured I would turn off of the trail when I get there and contour over to the control. That worked, but man I was slow. That hill killed me.
Then I wanted to contour over to the trail and take that down, but I kept drifting down and ended up right at the beginning of the driveway to the northernmost cabin (so I wasn't our of bounds, thankfully). I should practice contouring, though, it could have really helped me. But thankfully this didn't cost me too much time, so I ran down the road, then took a left and ran up the road in the re-entrant. Another hill that killed me. And it wasn't even steep at all! I guess I was just trying hard to run it fast, but that certainly didn't feel fast at all. But after all I convinced myself to keep at it and I ran up till the end of the road. I turned into the woods and had a slow attack to my 7th control because I was so tired from that hill. Yeah, I really should do more hills.
So here I decided to run back out of the woods the same way I came, and turn left to go south on that road. It was downhill, but a bit twisty. It was fine for running, but afterwards while comparing route choices with Max he showed me that another (in my opinion better) route choice was to go all the way back down the same way I came up, and then turn left to go around the other side of the lake than I did. But after all, I don't think I lost too much time with my route choice, I don't think it was too much longer.
The course went okay. But it was good that Greg gave me some advice during the warm up, and I tried to stick with it. It was to use a lot of compass (I tried, but I didn't want to trust it too much since I know that that's something i really need to practice a lot more), keep my head up (that saved me a few times), and to not run diagonally down, but to contour over and go straight down or vice-versa (I did this with #5, and I think it worked well). So that helped quite a lot.
I feel a bit bad that I didn't run red as I had planned, but I am so glad that I didn't, it was really nice to have a short course again.