orienteering 1:49:09 [3] 4.96 mi (22:00 / mi) +520m 16:36 / mi
A very humbling outing on the Prépoulain map. 1:15000 requires a great deal of focus. Sam and I ran to the start (straight up hill) and then I set out on the Men's course from a french selection race that is also doubling as a model event. For the most part there were little paper tags at my control sites, but Sam discovered a few that were missing tags...
I was cruising along on my way to the first control, and then got a little bit lost, and a little bit lost leaves you very much confused. I relocated pretty quickly and found the control, but remained wary of moving too fast. The second control I navigated too perfectly, but was surprised because I actually expected it to be a little farther on. The whole course was only 8.6k, but I ran out of time (we had given ourselves a 100 minute time limit) after only doing about half, and then worked my way back to the car. When I was navigating well, I had no problems, but running on the steep climbs was very tough and it was very easy to get turned around on the intricate bits. In fact, I never actually found control #6, I found an extra streamer (the woods here are full of streamers, o-flags, lengths of toilet paper, all marking different controls for different training groups) on a nearby feature, and didn't realize I was too high until I hit the trail too early on my way to 7.
Also, I slipped on a slimy log and hit my back in an uncomfortable way, so not my favorite training so far here in France.