NEOC local meet at Gay City, a place that I have enjoyed orienteering several times, although there is a significant difference in the feel of the place depending on whether the summer vegetation is out or not. It's not so much that the visibility is less, it's actually still pretty good, but the ferns are up, hiding the rocks. The ferns are far from everywhere, but they make a difference where they are. So a place that is quite fast under dormant conditions changes to only moderately fast this time of year. But still a fun place to go no matter what the season.
I had a good run navigationally, but physically the same problem as last week, ran out of zip after about 30 minutes and was really struggling the last half, lots of walking breaks and stumbling and falling. No serious damage done, though at one point map and control card were quite bloody, all from a little slice at the end of a finger. I guess my blood is flowing well.
It also seemed hot, I think it was about 80F. But that's just a lame excuse. Also didn't come into to this fresh, been training through everything, another lame excuse. Really just need to HTFU and learn to push for 45+ minutes like I will have to do in 6 weeks.
At least the first half was good, ran all the hills. And the orienteering was solid all the way, getting really good mental images of how the controls sat, so never missed anything by more than 10 or 20 meters. That's good, got to keep building on that, you want to develop good habits, so that when the pressure is on you still do things right.
My
routes. Nothing that I would do any differently, except not fade. Which might serve as a reminder that I have been eating too much recently. At least I was moving well the first half.
And at least one initial connection, met Marie. And came close to a scalp or two, but Pavlina ducked me by running the Green course and Clem didn't make quite enough blunders. Close, of course, gets you nothing.