PreRace Goals:
-Treat it as a line-o and know where I am 100% of the time and do not push the pace past where I can orienteer. When in doubt stop and check where I am
-Easy to the first few controls
1. I started heading to 12 then quickly corrected. I stayed on the path to make sure I didn't mess up and get lost on the first control.
2. I went down the massive pit snake thingy which happened because I wasn't looking for other options, more just keeping track of where I was, then ran along the path till it turned 90 degrees and hugged the hills, but lost confidence and went slowly because I was too surprised at how well it was going
3. Along the spur to stay above everything and then slowly into the control
4. Straight to it, staying on ridges
5. On the trail until the large bend, I wanted to challenge myself in this terrain because it was a training run(yes thats what I though when I ran this leg) Smoothly ran along ridges and ran right by my control because I though it was the next reentrant, got to the top of the big hill and quickly relocated
6. Along ridges to the control
7. Along ridges and through the large ridge north-west of the giant pit, then gradually went to the control
8. West side of the green hill/circle then along the top of the spur to the control. I ran too slowly on this, it was easy navigation but I was holding back too much, kept it controlled though which was good
9. 90 degree wrong compass bearing from holding my map 90 degrees wrong, hit the fence and relocated then went to the left of the giant pit, and double checkted my placement on the first large trail. I ran 15m from the swamp in the pit then ran up the hillside. When I got up the hill I tried to keep from getting lost so I followed the path to its bend then cut off to the next bend in the parallel trail but I had to hard of an east compass bearing and went to the wrong hole and relocated on the large trail by the green and then ran in to the control
10. Ran over the hill and got a bit confused when I saw the larger pit but not the control in the depression, so I had to run down to it and saw it once I was 5m away.
11. Cut to the trail then to the next portion of it and kept on it until the before the control where the two large trails and little path are and then hopped over both and follower the spur of the hill to the control
12. Compass to the bend in the trail then off again, around and up the large pit and to the field, across the field and down to the control
Finish. Followed the path in and cut to the building
Overall:
-I did a good job taking the first controls out easily to get into the map and understand the contours, I could've had some massive mistakes
-I needed to be more confident in my orienteering skills which using obvious handrails and second guessing myself
-I did a good job always checking the compass, other than my one mess-up, this kept me going along the right route
-Good job quickly relocating when I was confused and also a good job not panicking
-Next time I need to attack controls stronger and be confident about where I am
-I need to check alternate routes better by taking more time to plan ahead
All-in-all I was happy with my warm up which got me in the right state of mind, and I kept calm and controlled the entire race which allowed me to stay in control. I had a few mess-ups which were easily preventable but I recovered from them quickly. I am fairly happy with this race, as it was in extremely technical terrain. After gaining more confidence from a few more successful runs I will work on having a more aggressive pace, I wasn't tired at all from this race, sweaty of course, but not tired, which I am happy about because it means I can easily improve my speed once I can navigate more strongly.
Results:
http://bit.ly/1XqRRkr