Orienteering race (Sprint) 22:56 [5] *** 2.2 km (10:25 / km) +60m 9:10 / km
shoes: Poison Ice Bugs
U.S. Sprint Champs at Mendon Ponds Park. My main goal for today was to stay relaxed at the start - find the start triangle quickly, then plan and execute a reasonable route to #1. It will be interesting to see how my splits stand up, but in both my races today, I felt reasonably calm at the start, found the start triangle without going cross-eyed from nerves, and took a decent route (I'd give myself a mark of about 8 out of 10) to #1.
After that, the rest of the sprint had no particular goals, but it went reasonably well. It wasn't until #11 that I messed up. It should have been easy - behind a thicket just off the trail, but I briefly forgot about the 1:4,000 map, so I went looking too far at another thicket. Turns out Peggy messed up the same control (before going on to win the gold medal), and we had virtually the same (long) split. I figure it was a 1+ minute error, which is a lot for a sprint, but I have to be happy to only mess up one of 14 controls. Congrats to Peggy & Clare for taking 1st and 2nd, and I was lucky to finish 3rd, about 1:50 out of the lead.
Our sprint today had been designed for maximum spectator friendliness and sociability, which was great. We ran to a spectator control partway through the race, then ran all the way around a field - up and down a hill - enroute to the finish. The elites started together a little after the rest of us, so we could all be there to cheer for them. The emcee was great at giving us an idea of how racers were currently ranked as they approached the start control or the finish, so it really worked well as a spectator event. Bravo to the Rochester Orienteering Club for a great job.
Orienteering race (Middle) 48:13 [5] *** 3.55 km (13:35 / km) +190m 10:43 / km
shoes: Poison Ice Bugs
Middle Distance - I'm not a great warmer upper, but today I decided to run for about 10 minutes before the start. And wouldn't you know it, as I ran down a perfectly flat forest trail, averting my eyes from the male orienteers peeing off to each side, I twisted my ankle hard. I'd wrenched it lightly in the playground with AdventureGirl! yesterday, but today I heard a couple of crunching sounds and knew it was the real deal. Not so bad that it turned into a baseball, like it has before, but there is acute pain and a bit of swelling. This happened just a few minutes before I was called to the start line - grrr.
Even so, I got off to a reasonable start. I was very conscious of finding good footing but felt like I was racing well for the first 6 controls. Then I went BOOM on the way to #7. Just wasn't concentrating - passed a few major trails and couldn't place exactly where I was. Saw the pond behind the control and thought it was an earlier pond. Climbed the big ridge thinking it was the big hill in front of the control, even though I should have known better because I'd been on the ridge before. Got on a trail going northwest and had to stop and convince myself of how far wrong I had gone - and that is when I relocated - yikes. Should have stopped much, much earlier.
That wasn't the most memorable moment in the race though. As I approached #12, a cadet said, "Don't step in the mud!" I thought to myself, "What a friendly cadet! Surely he realizes that I am an experienced orienteer who doesn't mind a little - KERSPLASH!" Holy CRAP - after punching the control, I thought I was stepping into mud that might be ankle-deep, but I went in somewhere between waist and chest-deep into stinky liquid mud, and had to extract myself with a combination of swimming strokes and random vegetation grabs while Jon T ran past with a look of sympathy. I guess I should have realized that it was a real emergency when the cadet forgot to call me "Ma'am". He was clearly feeling stressed. AdventureGirl! operated a big hand pump to help me wash off all the oogie stuff.
Nice to chat with friends in the sunshine and eat yummy sundaes from the junior team's fundraising ice cream social. Last time I checked, I was 4th, less than 4 minutes behind 1st. I figure my error was about 6-7 minutes, so it was mostly a good race - but you have to do better than "mostly" in orienteering! At least I met my goal for the day - relaxed starts and good route execution to #1 on each course.
Not sure how the ankle is going to fare with tomorrow's Ultra-Long. If I hadn't come all this way, I'd probably skip it. On the bright side, the need to go slower will fit well with my goal of staying focused for the entire race.