http://picasaweb.google.com/pwentz3l/STLAMeet#5447...
Great course on a great day. After looking at my GPS track, I see I have a few things to work on. #1, set the GPS to not auto pause when doing an O meet. Every time I paused to look at the map, it stopped tracking. 3.5 minutes of time missing from the track.
Started on the path to one, which seemed to take a long time when running down the trail. They had it hidden past a small rise. I punched and headed to #2, and felt like I was on the map. I ran in to Foxshadow about 75 meters from the control, he had an unfortunate start. I felt in touch with the map, made a minor adjustment to the control and we headed to three together. We countoured, but got a little low. Another adjustment, this one more major, but not horrible. 4 was an easy find, and I felt confident going in to 5. Navigating off of the shallow spur. 6 was another easy one, but not on the blue course, so FS and I parted ways. I tried a mix of countouring while attempting to find the path towards 7, didn't do either very well. I ended up bobbling this control, not horribly, but enough to shake the confidence. I managed 8 well, but chose a horrible route to 9. Why head in to the undergrowth, when you had a nice clean spur to follow? 10, simple, and then the slog to 11. Fairly large hill to cross. Another bobble. I was cresting the hill, saw FS sprint right to left in front of me and went to investigate where he came from. I had a straight path to the control, but was drawn away. My bad. I had a good plan for 12, but the plan included a poor route choice. A path run to the 90 degree NW turn, then run the south reentrant until I was comfortable contouring around the spur. I think all of the cliffs scared me off. The better choice was to take the reentrant north of the hilltop near 12.
All in all, this wasn't a horrible run on my part, definitely not clean, but no major gaffs. I took first in 40+. I was also last in 40+...... The only other persons in the age group both ran 21+. One winning, and the other having fun. This would have probably been good for 2nd.