orienteering race 1:12:01 [3] **** 6.9 km (10:26 / km) +230m 8:57 / km
spiked:12/13c shoes: VJ Integrator #3
US Champs Day 2, Moreau Lake. An interesting experience. I managed to maintain a good pace the whole way around the course and hold things together navigationally such that I had quite a good run compared to other people and brought home the bronze in M45. A few particular notes:
1) #3 was a longish leg diagonally across the grain, I had learned from looking at splits yesterday that my strategy of going off the line was not a winner, so I pushed pretty hard in a straight line, noting that there were some pretty big features near the end to look for. I did completely lose track of where I was and drifted slightly off line, but I kepy my eye open for a large marsh. My plan had been to go around the right-hand end of it, but it appeared to my right, so I adjusted and ran up the opposite side. This was either a case of pushing just hard enough for the circumstances, realizing that I had a backup in case I didn't quite execute my plan as intended, or a case of dumb luck.
2) #4 saw me pushing hard enough that I got to what I thought was the center of the circle and was fuzzy enough that I had to stop to read the control description and find out that I was looking for a boulder, rather than a reentrant as I had been thinking. So I scanned the terrain that I could see looking for boulders that I thought might be mapped. Of course I was standing next to something that I originally thought might be a cliff, but it was actually a boulder -- the boulder. If I had taken one more step before looking at the clues, I probably would have seen the flag. Probably didn't lose more than 10 seconds.
3) My #9 was the same as PG's #8. It was the one control that I looked at and said to myself "this could be dangerous, be very careful". So when I hit the trail on top of the ridge, I took it north all the way to the bend, since it was very distinct, and I wanted to get as close as I could on a dead-solid attack. From there it was just two steps: big cliff, knoll, and I got it with no trouble.
4) My one error was on #11, which was the first control down in the lower flatland. I got most of the way there, and then just stopped, baffled, likely due to my having pushed hard on the descent and run my brain out of oxygen. I sort of spun around a little and wandered up in the wrong direction briefly before the fog lifted and I went the right way. Still only a minute slower than the best time.
5) Overall I did much better than at the Highlander, probably in large part because I was just past the worst part of a cold two weeks ago and my aerobic capacity was presumably down. Still, I came into this weekend feeling out of shape and navigationally rusty, and was surprised at how well I did. My feeling on Saturday was that the terrain, while pleasant, was actually quite easy, much like the comments that PG and Heather had about the weird lumpy prairie map in Alberta that was used for (I think) the APOC individual. Looking at Winsplits, I didn't have many splits that were really very good (only one split as good as 5th on Sunday, though I was 5th on RedX for that day). So I guess what was probably happening is that I was doing tolerably well, but doing it consistently and not making any significant mistakes. Though it seemed simple to me, I guess others found it challenging. There are some people further down the list who show up on Winsplits as being error-free, but they were moving quite a bit slower.