Orienteering race (Green River College) 51:33 [4] shoes: Inov8 X-Talon 212 - BLUE
There's my high gear! I started the race at Sprint Camp pace, which put me in 2nd or 3rd behind Marissa and Celia early on, then when Celia made a mistake, I pulled into the lead which I kept until control 11.
Then there were long legs, unexpected elevation gain (partially due to a bad route choice), and I was only halfway through the race (so much for the 2-mile pace). My legs also felt strange... tight, as if wrapped in syran wrap. Or as if I had done Sprint Camp a week ago, then sat at a computer for a week afterwards. ;)
So I pooped out. Unfortunately, I pooped out not only physically, but a bit motivationally and mentally too. Realizing that I couldn't keep going fast, I lost some of my grit to keep pushing, and I lost my laser focus which resulted in a lot of stopping and stuttering over route decisions.
And even after successfully shooting bearing after bearing at Fire Mountain, I was still super cautious about shooting a bearing to 16. Although to be fair, the knolls and rootstock all turned out to be huge and very helpful, which I didn't know would be the case.
So, it was interesting the finish the race and feel like, "man, I know the 'runners' beat me on this one," then to see that they did, THEN to see the results and go, "WHAT?! I was winning at one point?! There's HOPE!!"
So now I just need to train my body to go that fast... for longer. ;)
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Also, I made a video!
Fer_Fun'k_Sake! was a beast and ran her race then ran mine to film me. I am so thankful that she did, since I am a huge fan of what I call the "third person" footage, which I used for most of the video. It provides a much wider view of the landscape, plus you can see my body language and facial expressions. In combination with the camera I wore, which captured my map handling, it gives me a lot to work with.