Orienteering race 1:53:19 [4] 10.8 mi (10:30 / mi)
ahr:171 max:182
16.1k (skip 2) Grunt Mass-Start at Hawn SP
Traveled to 1 & 2 rather conservatively. Tucked in behind the leaders and thinking about skips. Ran on the road behind AndyD most of the way to 3 - he picked up a bit of speed on the downhill and I tried to keep up into the woods. He ended up going a bit low into 3 and I stayed higher and met up with PeteC near the control. Back up the reentrant to 4 and saw JWilliams (I think) coming out of the control and Mo going in. Several others around as well.
Got to 5 w/decent pace and ran the low trail down to 6 solo. My skips still undecided, I checked the map over while I was on the trail and made up some time. Unfortunately, I lost contact with the map and when I reached the trail bend where I wanted to get off, I wasn't sure if I had run too far with the mix of streams and trail crossings near both 6 and 10. Ended up taking a foot trail north, realized my mistake, and cut over towards 6, but too far south. Got to where I thought 6 was, but I was too far east still. Finally made it to the control, but not before dropping 3-4 minutes. Ran the reentrant up to 7 w/Tom, Fredrik, and others, and spied Andrei from a distance ahead. Ran to 8 again and bobbled slightly west, another 1 minute mistake. Saw Ian and DFrei here as well.
Tried to pick up the pace to 9 to regain some lost ground but was hesitant over the flattish terrain and coming into the desired reentrant. Went too far south out of 9, pulling Tom with me, but recovered more easterly to the trail/stream intersection and on to 10. Took the spur up and over w/Tom while sharing skip strategy, deciding on 23 for sure and maybe 13.
Took a big digger on the way to 12 after hitting a prominent line of barbed wire (Why does this always happen to me?) - Tom helped me up and Fredrik made sure I was OK before heading on. Skipping 13, Tom and I ran the spur down toward 14, which was an easy find. Fredrik followed us a bit here, and upon getting close to the CP, realized that he had committed to skipping 13 as well. Made our way to 15 up by some rocks, Tom got pulled into an earlier reentrant, which cost a bit of time and energy to catch up again.
Fredrik put on a good pace to 16 and 17, and I think we started to gap Tom here. I followed a touch here and tried to relax while drinking my last 2 gulps of drink. Put a little distance on Fredrik on the way to 18 and 19, saw JasonP on the Runt and caught up to JWilliams. Bobbled a bit at 20 w/JWilliams, in the right reentrant but didn't spot the control tucked under. Fredrik closed the gap again and the three of us ran to 21 together. With such good runners on my tail, I hastily filled my bottle and drank it on the way to 22. Skipping 23, ran basically due north to 24, but hit the larger reentrant to the west. Took a PFC moment to stop, breathe, look at the map, and realized that I just needed to hop over the small spur to the east. Looked over my back and saw Fredrik right behind me looking for the control too - yikes! Popped over and nabbed 24, and then ran in the direction of 25 with lots of speed, hoping to put on some distance. Mostly contoured around/over the spurs to 25, but it was an in-and-out control and I soon saw Fredrik coming up the reentrant on my way down - maybe a 30 second gap at best. No problems navigating to 26 - just a hike up with my hands on my knees, trying to go as fast as possible. Took a rather steep/sketchy route off of the spur down to the trail, over the bridge, and onto the finish.
Ended up in 2nd overall, ~3 minutes behind speedy/solid AndyD. Fredrik soon followed, less than a minute back - awesome effort on his part. Overall it was a decent run - a few bobbles in the start set me back a couple minutes, but solid navigation 9 and on (minus time spent looking for 20) set me up for a great finish.
MNOC represented with solid finishes all weekend long - so proud of our crew and the community that we have up here. I think for a club to roll 12 deep to an event like this is spectacular (thanks to the airlines for having price wars 2 months ago)!
Great to meet and catch up with folks from adventure racing, CAOC, BadgerOC, PTOC , and others.