Orienteering race 1:02:52 [3] 5.0 mi (12:34 / mi) +230m 11:00 / mi
What's the best thing to do the day after you go orienteering in the rain? Orienteering in the rain!
Actually, less rain. More trails on the map. And much less greenbrier. I ran (for me) pretty cleanly, only one big mistake and one smaller mistake and then the general mistakes everywhere else.
Controls …
1) took the trail right to the big-ass rock (terminology from yesterday) and up the reentrant.
2) Trail with stone wall, then rock on a very minor spur.
3) Followed the stone wall. Misread the cue sheet a little bit, but found the control (was looking for a hill, found a clearing).
4) Trail on a stone wall, then down around a shallow reentrant to a spur with a rock.
5) Ran up the trail up the hill, then contoured from where it turned. Extra climb, but better attacking. Found the other trail, then up the hill from the stream, but not up far enough.
6) This was the first big mistake. I should have found the wall and then the trail. Instead I found the corner, but stayed too far above, and lost contact. I followed a shallow trail up the reentrant southwest of the control, then had to backtrack to find the real trails, and the control in a fireplace. AP says I lost 1:23 but Strava says it was 2:06 from when I went down the wrong contour to when I found my way back to the trail.
7) Spur, rock, control.
8) Trail, boulder field, reentrant, control.
9) Did this pretty well. Found the stone wall and marshy trail, then got a little mixed up around the marsh, up across the hill to the control
10) Down the trail, over the little hill and across the stream. Up the rocky reentrant trail, and hey look Brendan probably knows where he's going. Went a little right; should have used the rock wall to the left.
11) Second big mistake. Found the trail up the reentrant, and then ran the trail … right past the control to the stream. Wound up well below the control, had to go up the reentrant. AP says 1:53, Strava 2:30.
12) Trail, reentrant, spur, stream
13) Should have been an easy trail run, but my brain started to turn off. Which was an issue. So I stopped at a minor trail junction and just stood there for what felt like 10 minutes (looks like about 0:30), then went off running to the control (just past the cliff)
14) Attacked well to the trail, but overran the control to the clearing (the rocks are … well, they're mapped). Lost about 0:50 looking around here.
15) Trail run to the right of the open rock, right to the control. And apparently I won this control. I'm not sure why. Most every other control I ran cleanly I was in 5th-9th position; this one I won by 5 seconds (in 1:43). Some theories: a) I ran this very cleanly. Hit the trail, and ran right to the control where I expected it to be without looking at my map. b) I left the control having wandered so I'd internalized where to go next. c) I cut to the trail pretty quickly and may have had a bit more trail running. d) I killed the trail run. In any case, this is impetus to go faster next time on all the controls—if I'd won every control by 5% I would have won the race going away!
16) Right little trail, then a little to the right, but found the rock (open?) and control
17) Just ran over the hill looking for where there might be a 4m cliff, and there it was!
18) Played stupidly with my compass trying to make things line up (-15). Really on brain fumes here. Then just ran down the hill a little right of where I should have been, but then, trail run!
19) Good attack over the hill
20) Ran to the big building
21) Right down a reentrant
Finish was a trail run!
So, I didn't go that fast, which was partly navigation, and partly my legs being wicked tired from yesterday (every time I hit a hill it was sluggish). But I felt pretty good about the navigation, although I need to work on doing it faster and cleaner. Park-o and stupid rain training with Alex certainly help. But if I took off the 6:00 minutes of stupid navigation errors, I would have been in 5th place, and had my legs been a little less fried, well, who knows …