orienteering race 21:47 [4]
I wasn't really ready for the afternoon race. I missed the second control. Then on the route to 7-8-9 I decided to look at the descriptions and check the control codes. When I went to 7, the vegetation pushed me off line and I saw a control a bit to my right. I noticed the code and thought, "that's it," and punched, then went off to the next control. Things looked odd and didn't seem to fit, but there was a control in more-or-less the right direction and the code was a code I'd memorized. I punched and looked up and things looked wrong. I looked back at the map and realized that when I was on my way to 7, I got pushed off line and bumped in to 8 and - since I'd checked the codes in advance recognized the number - punched at 8 thinking I was at 7. Then went to what I thought was 8 (but was actually 9). Only after that control did I realize what was up and turned around and went back to 7, then took 8, and then 9. It cost a good 3-4 minutes (so a good 20 percent of my time on the course...yuck).
The lesson I learned is to not read codes, just read the map and navigate to the feature. I think if I'd done that, I'd have lost a little time, but more like 20 seconds.
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