Orienteering race 1:24:15 [4] 7.5 km (11:14 / km)
shoes: Icebug Spirit 4
Mendon Ponds Winterfest foot-O by Gary M.
Consensus is that getting to explore the North area of the park was a bonus. I had both good and bad legs there...
1 - 5 - relatively clean and made good decisions.
6 - thought I did well with this one, next to the pond, good time.
7 - also a good leg - stayed high and dropped in on the flag well.
8 - drifted right much more than I would have thought, and the heavy vegetation apparently threw me. I saw the farmhouse and took a while to relocate. Several minutes of lost time. Ultimately needed to securely get myself to the pond and over to the flag from there.
9 - and the rattling continued... I drifted left again, and thought I was ok until I realized I was on a trail and the only trails that matched were further north than I expected to be.
10 - heading out of this area I saw a tall ridge in front of me and skirted to the right - thought that was on line. Apparently the ridge was already to the right ot line, and I went around it further. 'gah... Had trouble locating the flag for 10 at the end as well, but it may have been tree-obscuring.
11-16 - good planning and running got me in ok.
I'm going to call 8 and 9 vegetation induced route selection - to my detriment.
But overall great fun to get out.