Orienteering 1:53:25 [3] 5.0 km (22:41 / km) +177m 19:16 / km
Practice course for US Champs near Plymouth Wisconsin. Kettle morraine terraine. Lots of depressions and small hills. Very different from Bay Area. However, the depressions were much bigger than I expected. I thought that the terrain would be more subtle with smaller depressions like near Uppsala Sweden.
In general, I felt pretty good about my navigation. I first thought I would cut off the far 4 controls, but things were going well so decided to do the whole course. I found all the controls without difficulty except for 8, where I stopped about 50 m too soon, and then of course, the one control, the total disaster. Control 11. I lost contact with the map, but when I hit the big trail, I thought I knew where I was, and probably did, but somehow I went too far east, and then I really got lost. Went out to the clearing, saw the road, and thought I knew where I was, but then had second thoughts and thought I might be at a different clearing. Wandered around again, and during the course of the search, realized I had begun looking for 12 instead of 11. Found a trail, thought it was a different trail, nothing matched, then realized it was the big trail i had crossed previously. This time I went out to the road, where I should have gone the first relocation. Found where I was and went fairly directly to the control. If I eliminate the 30 minute error, and the slow walk back to the finish from the last control, I would have done 15 min/k, or about 1:15. If I do that tomorrow, I will be happy.
Hopefully I won't make a huge brain fart like this tomorrow.
Goal for tomorrow: Clean run, don't worry about the time. I'm not going to run fast, unless I am on a trail and know exactly where I am. Try to stay on the ridges between the big reentrants. Don't lose contact with the map.