COC Middle Distance - M35, Course 9
I was pretty excited about running a middle distance race in technical terrain. Alli and I did split starts for the whole weekend so we could trade off Inara, and I had early starts each day.
Right off the start, I was surprised by just how rocky the footing was. It felt hard to find any flow through the terrain for the duration of the race. I started off well. In fact, I even won the first split and had the leading time on course 9 after 3 controls. I felt physically slow and not explosive, but was in control of my orienteering for the first 7 controls.
Then, the wheels came off. I got on the wrong open rocky hill going to 8 and could not relocate for the longest time, as suddenly everything looked like a dot knoll. Even once I figured out that I was on the wrong hill, I still took another loop before finding my control. 3:45 lost here.
I tried to shake it off and keep going, but immediately screwed up, just overshooting #9 and correcting in the wrong direction. Another 45 seconds gone.
I stopped, refocused, walked the first few steps towards #10, then started running again and spiked it.
With the renewed confidence I attacked #11 and again, missed it despite knowing where I was just 75 meters from the control. All the bumps were looking the same to me, and it took another 1:20 to relocate. Just like that, 6 minutes (!!) gone in four controls.
I kept running hard and didn't make any noticeable mistakes the rest of the way, but I was very disappointed with my performance. Still, it was a fun race in challenging terrain, and I'd love to have another crack at it.
I think that not orienteering and racing enough is a big cause of my problems. But also, I think that orienteering in QOC-land makes you lazy. The features are big and the woods are open, so you don't need to be as precise: you can always correct on the fly, and you can usually spot the flag if you are in the control circle.
After finishing, I tagged off to Alli, though Judy Kemp took Inara while I talked to Hammer about the details of getting a kids' orienteering program going.
The evening was made complete by some lasagna and repeated and comically thorough domination of Ian in Severn Wonders.
RG:
http://orienteering.ca/cgi-bin/reitti.pl?act=map&i...