Orienteering (Sprint) 29:00 [4]
My weekend started with a trainwreck of a race. It's been a long time since I've done a 100% forest sprint and I was thrown by all the detail at 1:5000. I blew at least a minute on the first control when I angled incorrectly from the start flag. I hit the next 3 controls no problem and start to get a feel for how close everything was. Leg 5 was a long leg that took us to the other side of the golf course via forest trails, but I misread my map while sprinting too fast and ended up right in the middle of the golf course, which was clearly out-of-bounds. It's no wonder the map didn't line up with what I was seeing around me. While I was pretty close to control 5, I knew I needed to backtrack rather than illegally cross the immaculate green. I lost at least 5 minutes.
I was so frustrated and wanted to go back and start again....if only that was an option in orienteering! The last nine controls were OK - no major mistakes but definitely some less than stellar approaches into the flag.
Oh well, a bad day of orienteering is still a million times better than a good day sitting at home.
I came dead last.
Orienteering (Middle) 1:12:00 [4]
I was determined to redeem myself from this morning, so decided to have a good plan for every control rather than just run at it.
I lost a minute or so to control 1 which wasn't a fantastic start, but then spiked the next eight in very detailed terrain. I was feeling confident again and reading the map properly. But then I went toward #10 without a good plan except a hail-mary bearing. Of course, I ran right passed it in the thick vegetation and without catching nearby and not really sure where I was, I made the quick decision to bail out to the road which was 200 m away. There were a few other people out on the road too, obviously having the same troubles as me. I went back in on a careful bearing and trying to read the terrain and somehow ended up at my #11 control, which was very close by. I was able to use it to navigate back to #10.
The next three controls went OK, but then I screwed the second to last one after contouring around a hill in what was supposed to be a mixture of white and yellow "runnable forest". I was thrown off by the head high dark green wall of bush that had grown up since the map was made and struggled to get around the hill in a purposeful way. Once I hit the mountain bike trails, I took another minute to figure out where I was before heading back up to the control.
Not a great race either, but still lots of fun.