Orienteering race (Long) 2:22:28 [4] *** 14.65 km (9:43 / km) +476m 8:22 / km
ahr:163 max:193 spiked:11/16c shoes: Inov8 X-Talon 200
West Point Long - F21E
Ohhhh boyyy, this race was a large array of emotions that's for sure.
Went in with the mindset of going slow and steady and being clean. I was definitely slow and steady off the start with some nice side-hilling to #1. I ended up a bit too low but figured it out pretty quickly. 2 was some more of the same stuff and I ended up stopping too early on a similar looking area before figuring out I had to keep going. Nailed 3 and then decided to take the easy path route to 4 down to the south of the lake. I was reading ahead here a bit and kind of zoned out because I was not confident at all going into 4. Eventually figured it out.
5 was a good long leg and I decided to take the climb early and then ride the ridge into the control route. Except once I got climbing, the cliffs above me looked super gnarly so I side-hilled a little on a plateau before climbing again. I fell a bunch on times here, once on my sore hip but it didn't seem to be that bad. At last I made it all the way up to find out that the nice "white" forest was actually very much GREEN and not as rewarding as I was expecting after climbing so much. Was tired and not really focused when I came into 5 and made a mistake near the circle.
Was way off on my bearing to 6 but quickly recovered. Took my gel and then all of a sudden my hip seized completely up. I hobble walk-jogged into 6 and then walked 7-9 more or less. At 9 I was in so much pain that I decided that I was going to just walk back to the start. So I started limping back, seeing Pia pass me on the trail (I honestly thought she was WAY ahead of me). I got to a steep hill on the path and tried to run up it and... hey, it actually felt good?!? Internal debate as to if I should keep going or not... and I decided "yolo, i'll walk/jog". So off I went again.
Slow and clean though 10-13. Once I got to 11 my hip started really hurting again. By now though, I was committed to this final loop all in green crap. Going to 14 I was not focused on orienteering at all because I was hurting so much and made another 5 minute mistake or so. Somehow won the split to 16 and I have no idea how my hobble jog and I managed that...
Thinking back, I probably should not have kept going for the sake of future races this summer but oh well. Overall, I'm shocked at my times on the splits of this course, and had I not been injured this would have been a good one. The ending makes the race seem so awful, but the rest was a good confidence booster to know that I still remember how to navigate after a month of studying and exams (great prep for sure), and that i'm in pretty good shape. Now, a few days off to let this hip recover and then up the training for the world cup!