Orienteering 1:14:00 [3]
shoes: XTalon212-1
US Long champs, Bat Cave map, KY. Really looked forward to this.
Nothing surprising on warmup map - open, white, steep, well mapped rock. In hindsight, there was little to prepare us for the grotty parts to follow.
Steady to 1 and 2.
3 - light green began to become very slow, and missed the depression by about a minute. Drifted in. Looking back, the lower left route was faster but at the stage, did not have the info to judge that properly.
4,5 were awfully green and thorny with no obvious route choice - really no fun at all .
Spiked 6 but then the aversion to green dragged me off on the poor right route to 7, compounded by again missing a depression at the end by perhaps 2 minutes. Contoured in from solid AP but flag seemed 2 contours higher. Anyway, Looking back, the left route is both faster and safer but needed an immediate commitment to some green!
Amazing route choice to 8 - really slow - when it should be obvious that a flatter route to the far right was far better.
Ok through short legs at the end, and hoping for similar in the middle race tomorrow.
So probably 7 minutes off a clean run, and a couple more off a fast one. Looking holistically at the map, I have a lot of sympathy with the planner - difficult to thread a great course through it, but thought he did a good job.
Didn't stop to chat so not sure what ailed everyone else. Quads and shins cut to bits.
Well staged event , great weather, friendly, and parts were great underfoot.