Orienteering (Course Setting) 3:32:00*** 12.0 km (17:40 / km) spiked:32/35c slept:5.0
Patuxent River Park, MD. Peggy, the kids and I flew back this morning so I made good use of the time. QOC had no course setter for an event that is to be held here on October 23rd, so I was a late volunteer. I'm presuming the club will find a meet director too. I checked out control locations and left streamers. I am setting a slightly shorter Billygoat style course, like I had the previous year, as well as 6 other courses. I left from Riverside Field. It was a cloudy day and had showered briefly on my drive to the park. The vegetation was abundant--appropriate for the season but not that difficult to get through. Grasses had been mowed low, including parts of the old Nike missile grounds. Streams were dry and marshes not so hard to avoid or to cross as needed. I ran between all controls and thought I was moving fairly well; perhaps I spent more time at each location than I have guessed or I just moved a lot more slowly. I was slightly off on 3 controls and sometimes I didn't realize it until leaving the location. I also moved a few control locations from my original plan. I still have some other control locations to checkout. It was much more humid than my weekend in New England was, but it was still nice compared to what the weather had been near DC for most of the summer. There weren't a lot of spider webs but at one point, I must have gone through one and picked-up a spider that was over an inch wide. It was trying to climb my neck when I noticed and brushed it off in a hurry.
