US Night-O Champs!
I was very excited to run this race - my first night-O since moving back from Sweden!
I had been having a toothache the last few days with a weird swelling on my gum under a tooth that had been giving me trouble before. I finally went to a dentist today, and the verdict was: the tooth has to go. So I got the tooth pulled. This was pretty painful, and I was on heavy painkillers the rest of the day.
I was pretty nervous about running the Night-O, and still wasn't sure if I'd run when we got to the event, but eventually decided to do it (shocking, I know). started out very carefully and took it pretty easy for the first half of the course. I still made a couple of small mistakes, but was really enjoying the open woods and the chilly night. I finally picked up the pace in the second half of the course when I decided that the stitches in my gums were doing fine. This went pretty well, though I managed to screw up the last control. I ended up 2nd, behind Mattias Eriksson, who ran a very good race, and just ahead of Kenny. So much fun! Probably the most enjoyable orienteering for me this fall.
Route gadget with my route:
http://qocweb.org/routes/cgi-bin/reitti.pl?act=map...