Orienteering race (Brown) 1:13:21*** 4.92 km (14:54 / km) +60m14:03 / km ahr:133 max:159 spiked:10/12c shoes: 2022 VJ Falcon 6.5. GA
First day of Southwest Spring Week, classic courses at Catalina State Park, starting from the parking area at the east end of the park road, about a km from parking/assembly. But I didn't have to do the walk to start as I was volunteering, working first shift on starts, with a TSN volunteer, Sue Wenberg, and we driven there. Glen went out on his Green course early, then after finishing returned to the start area to relieve me so I could do my course (Brown, 3.9 km, 50 m climb nominal). He then drove the rental car back to finish/assembly. It was upper 50s when we arrived, but in the 60s or near 70 by the time I went out...short sleeve weather!
My work at start was to write down when each person/group started, so was able to chat with Kevin Fisher and Sue H-T (at separate times) about them meeting each other at some point to get acquainted and discuss EMPO since Kevin and Syd just moved to the Niskayuna area. Said hi to a lot of other orienteers I know.
Most of the course went well, and I avoided as much cactus as I could but still caught a thorn in a finger at some point which bled for a little while. Had a few other snags but nothing that drew much blood. :-)
Got my feet wet(!) in the stream crossing (which has always been dry other times we've been here) on the way to #1. I missed a little on #4 when I checked a large boulder nearby; and had trouble fathoming where to go to get to #8 but eventually convinced myself I *did* have to drop 2.5 contours into a rocky reentrant and then climb back up 2 on the other side to get where I needed to go. But after I finally got down three contours the rest was straightforward and mostly flat. A lot of my controls had people at or near them so were easy to find once I was in the area. I had forgotten to take my hiking pole but won't make that mistake the other days.