Orienteering 49:18 [3] *** 6.0 mi (8:13 / mi) +90m 7:51 / mi
spiked:41/42c shoes: Kayano 20 Blue
Presidio of SF, Main Post. First event of the Summer Series. The advanced course was 6.0 km, 90m climb, 42 controls. Finished 8th of 42 (all ages), 3rd in points after age/gender adjustments. First place was a 25 yr old Swede who finished 5th in JWOC five years ago.
Don't think I'd ever run a course with this many controls before. Required a lot of concentration. There were lots of technical details, good route choice problems and very little dead running. Really was a good challenge. Did quite well - always like short, technical, urban stuff, even in a longer race. Definitely fun!
Only real time loss (maybe 10 secs) was at #22, where the description didn't convey that the control was going to be inside the wall. Lost some time trying to get maps into cases at the map exchanges, and also with my running shoes, didn't get good traction in some of the vegetated areas so had to move slowly. Slightly suboptimal routes on #3 (should have gone around the W side of the building instead of the E) and #14 (didn't see the uncrossable hedge row on the map initially), but only cost a couple of secs each. Took a tumble when my foot got caught in vines on the way down to #24. Lost a few secs at #39 because I was a little low (this was the one control I didn't spike - though it's not clear to me that the feature was mapped correctly).
Really hot at home, it was delight that it was in the low 60's for the event. Got less than 3 hours sleep last night. And had to rush off to get to Joe Scarborough's 80th birthday party (first time I'd seen him since his stroke 3 years ago).
Graham said wearing shorts would be OK, but there were a few thorny patches to run through and my legs got pretty scratched up.
[Orienteering race]
Running warm up/down 10:00 [3] 0.7 mi (14:17 / mi)
shoes: Kayano 20 Blue
Good warm up.
No cool down, but did stretch.