Orienteering 15:05 [5] 4.22 km (3:34 / km) +7m 3:32 / km
shoes: Inov-8 x-talon 190
WUOC Sprint - 35th.
Was looking forward to this. Knew it would be fast based on the winning time and felt quite settled through to 5, flowing nicely and planning. Entered 5 on the west side with the intention of swinging back out but changed my plan when I saw a Russian rounding the fence so checked my map and went for that instead, a better route. I think this may have ruined my planning on 7 though, cutting in a building early after hesitating and giving myself 2 right angles, losing at least 10s (probably a bit more in the process). Head screwed back on for 8 and then took the road on 9 because it would allow me to plan the next few, maybe lost some more time on routes here. Flowed around 10 fine and 11 was going ok but there were loads of trees obscuring the buildings from the roads on the way, meaning I couldn't track them easily, cutting in far too early and losing around 20s. In hindsight, talking with Jonny, I should have been looking at the car park on the left but my compass was over that! This small slip led to missing the slight cut on 12 before hesitating in to the yard as well. This hesitation carried on to 13 when I took a bit of a crap route out of 12 (should have just hit the road) and then nearly missed the path between the fences, again losing a few seconds. Made sure to settle down from here and was flowing and moving well to the finish, trying to optimise running lines which may have led to some slightly longer routes but meant I could keep running and planning.
Generally not a bad performance but the 2 mistakes notably on 7 and 11 cost up to 30s, which would have meant knocking on the door of top 10 and would also have made me more composed around 12/13. Pace was good though and clawed back some paces being a bit more aggressive at the end. Basically I think I'm getting to a point where physically I'm in the mix now, which will hopefully still keep improving and this should hopefully allow me to be more composed and focus on the navigation in these sorts of races. Enjoyed it though, great to be racing at this level and I know what I need to do now to improve my results. All in for the relay now though!