Orienteering 1:45:00 [1] 15.0 km (7:00 / km)
shoes: Saucony Kinvara TR
Well. This was quite the day.
Sometimes things happen.
It started out at 4:20AM when I got up to catch my flight to San Fran. A two hour connection in Seattle, then arriving in SFO at 11:45, wherein I sprinted to hopefully catch a train to get to the station that someone was going to pick me up. I missed the train, and had to wait an extra 15 for the next one. Eventually I got to the station, 30 minutes late (I was never going to get there on time), and managed to catch them as they were pulling out of the parking lot to leave me behind. Phew!
Then, a quick 45 minute to the race site, and then finagled someone to give me a ride up to the assembly. 12 hours after my day started, my race started.
And wow, did I suck!
As the first forest race of the year, I expected some rustiness, but fundamentally I did none of the things I should do to navigate properly. I used my compass almost not at all, I made zero plans, I left controls without having clue of what I was doing, I didn't read ahead, basically everything I should be doing, I didn't.
So, I botched number 2 and ended up on the wrong ridge because I didn't take a bearing to check my direction once crossing the fence. I did 4 way, way too low because I didn't look to see the height of the control relative to where I was now. I went from 5 to 8 because I upside down number 6 looked like a 9. And then I skipped 9 and when straight from 8 to 10. I botched 12 because I didn't check my control description and couldn't identify where the control was in the circle and didn't take a stop to be absolutely sure. I realized around 18 that I had skipped a control and was definitely not going back, but even then I didn't do anything properly for the last few, and bled time each control on silly little things.
On my ipod I have a list of things I do during each leg, and I haven't looked at it in six months and didn't look at it before the start. I pretty much navigated like I was sprinting, which creates some super, super bad habits for the forest.
This did not feel good. But,
sometimes things happen.