Day 1 of US Champs in Laramie. I had a very clean run, and it seemed so easy that as I came into the finish I thought, "this was orienteering lite". But others had trouble, so it's just that I was doing well. This was one of the best races of my life. I did a number of things right:
- planned how to exit each control, and remembered the plan
- caught myself once when I lost contact with the map and pulled myself back into contact immediately, instead of vaguely hoping things would get better
- stopped myself from freaking out when I lost contact another time, noticing that there was a catching feature (open land) just 10-20 meters after my control so it didn't matter if I missed it
- chose excellent routes in the more technical rocky terrain, routes that made it relatively easy to nail the control
- read the map while jogging slowly, instead of stopping or walking, by lifting my legs high to avoid tripping
I lost maybe 2 minutes due to hesitations and poor micro-route choices. For me this is excellent. It certainly helps to be in this terrain, which I seem to find easy to navigate and also easy to run in. Last weekend I walked almost the entire time due to rough footing.
Finished 5th out of 7 US Champs eligible F45+ runners, and 13th out of 34 women on the course. Nice! Strong field of F45+.