Orienteering race (Sprint) 21:06 [4] **** 3.5 km (6:02 / km) +85m 5:23 / km
shoes: 07 Saucony Kilkenny
US Team Trials, Day 1 - Sprint Distance
A longish sprint race on the Lehigh University campus. I thought it was a well-designed course for the terrain, although probably a bit long overall. Nobody broke through 20 minutes, although I presume the course was difficult enough that everyone made some small mistakes at least. For my part, I was doomed by just not pushing hard enough to make up for any mistakes (I always seem to make a few in every sprint), plus making a huge error (about 45 seconds) on the 13th (?) control. Total loss of over a minute in errors - it was possible to win today, but my performance was only good enough for 7th - stupid, stupid me. Must work at these if I am to ever be able to really enjoy sprint races.
Started second of the non-Team Trials runners, passing the first starter on the way to the 2nd control. Ran the rest of the course without seeing anyone else on my course, which did nothing to speed up my already-slow default pace.
I never had good flow through the course, felt like start-stop-start-stop-repeat. Strangely enough, I can't even recall where I went during the course. I can only say that I did visit the correct controls in order (so say the splits), but otherwise I can only remember about half of the routes. Compare that to virtually any terrain race (sprint, middle, or long) and I have very good recall of where I actually ran. Probably not doing a good-enough job of reading ahead and pre-visualizing the course, I guess.