Orienteering race 1:42:51 [4] 7.0 km (14:42 / km)
shoes: Icebug olx 2nd
NEOC Breakheart Reservation Red. I sneaked a peek at some maps online, and I was pretty nervous about the navigation. Lots of fiddly little contour detail, some green, some indistinct trails, all peppered with the usual New England rock.
But it turned out o.k., I needn't have worried. It was pretty high quality terrain, and a good map, not unduly cluttered. The course featured short legs with direction changes, and that's no surprise because the roads and trails make it hard to get any distance cross country. But there were some unfortunate in-and-out legs. On the other hand, the "indistinct" trails were distinctly visible (unlike last week at Prospect Hill), which helped a lot.
My major problems were at #1 (didn't go high enough, lost a couple minutes going back and forth below the control on about a 20-meter leg), #12 (lost track of where I should leave the trail, got hung up in nasty thick vegetation), #13 (still flustered from 12, went the wrong way on the road, then attacked too early and couldn't find the cliff, thought it was going to be easy), and #15 (no brain at all, must have been oxygen deprivation, couldn't even locate myself on the road).
In contrast, I had an easy time with #10 which others had trouble on, but would have been faster if I'd headed straight down and across the marsh instead of following the trail along the ridge. Also good on #19, went all the way along the lake to the little bridge at the neck.
Better at the controls this time, picked out the boulders pretty well, but the maze-like cliffs at different elevations gave me a lot of trouble.