Orienteering race 1:42:13 [3] *** 5.8 km (17:37 / km) +250m 14:30 / km
NAOC Long Champs. W45. Forerunner = 8.6K
Yea, yea, I know. Today was a new day...blah, blah, blah. New day, same sh*t. Once again, it was mainly one control that did me in...#11. I decided to go around to the right coming out of 10, to avoid a big climb. I didn't curve around the hill the right way and nothing was matching up. I happened upon a trail that seemed to be going my way (and which I couldn't find on the map), so I followed it, thinking it would at least take me to the main trail. I did hit the main trail, after coming through many fields, and couldn't find that anywhere on the map. I started up the trail, trying to match features to any part of the map, and I could not. I even started thinking I had run off the map. I hadn't seen another orienteer for about 10 minutes, and those were Blue runners.
I had almost reached the top of the climb, on the trail, when I decided that that was enough, it was time to try to find the Finish and DNF. When all of a sudden, a woman pops out on the trail and comes running towards me! I didn't recognize her at first, but I could read the name on her bib, and it was Magali Robert! Hallelujah...I was at least on the map. Then I decided to try to match things up one last time. Slowly but surely, I thought things started looking right. I cautiously left the trail at a small hilltop, climbed over a fieldy spur, down past a boulder...okay, now things were looking better. I finally made it in to the control and did a little "Ha, ha, I can't believe I found the control" dance.
On to the finish for another less-than-stellar, but still fun, race.