Orienteering race 1:07:41 [4] 6.8 km (9:57 / km) +285m 8:14 / km
North American Long Championships near Cranbrook, BC - Course 7 (M45).
Oh well. This could have been another very nice run. I had an excellent first control (I was actually in 2nd place!), thanks to good compatibility with the map. Unfortunately, I punched just before Carl Childs, so even though I had taken a decent rough bearing to C2, I couldn't help but notice that he was heading quite a bit left of me. For a moment, I thought he had been correct, when I saw a flag, but alas, it was not ours and the correction cost a good 40 seconds. C3 looked like a good leg for me, despite the uphill, as the navigation seemed to allow good running speed. I opened up a big lead on Carl, but misread the line of trees, got to a control that wasn't mine, and foolishly continued on, not stopping until I was 250m past the control. Over 4 minutes of error there.
I settled down somewhat, and though I was a bit weak on the hills, it didn't really hurt me until C9, where I lost some time in execution and some time being too slow on the hills. The next big error came at C11. I started left to avoid some climb, and tried to angle back around. I thought I had things lined up, and the pace count had me coming into a cliff, and I saw a control, but it was not mine. I had to climb a hill to relocate, and I was 180m left of my control. The recovery wasn't clean as I tried to be smart about avoiding climb, but when past the control.
I did come within 1 second of winning the final split, but my legs were fried and I stumbled a bit in the last 30m.