Orienteering race 28:00 [4] *** 2.5 km (11:12 / km)
spiked:6/12c shoes: Inov8 - Xtalon 212
This was a really great sprint course -- a lot of quick decisions, and plenty of opportunities to make little mistakes. I took advantage of almost all of these opportunities, feeling like I made mistakes on almost every leg. #11 was the worst. I seriously over-ran it, somewhat stupidly trying to use the fence as a catching feature -- but I never saw the fence.
I had heard rumors about the quality of the map and had never run on it, so I think that I was tentative and un-confident, and this slowed me down. I actually think that the map was okay -- not nearly as bad as I had feared. The contour mapping was really quite good, in my opinion. The vegetation mapping was clearly the worst part of the map, but it only took a few trips through supposedly white forest to convince me to default to trail options.
As a sprint, I thought that this was really a well-set course. I don't think that whether there is green or not defines a sprint; it's more about the decisions and the expected winning times. So for me, it's okay to put a sprint course in a relatively green area, especially if, like Matthew did, the setter enables some trail options.