Orienteering race 1:44:39 [3] 4.0 mi (26:10 / mi)
shoes: IceBug Olx 4
Brown course at Pohick Bay. My first ever orienteering run with a dog. It was a lot of fun (for both of us). Lido is a 9-month-old border collie-lab mix, rescued from West Virginia and passed through several hands before he came to us. He seems like a great dog. Like a lab, he's loyal to a fault. Like a border collie, he's smarter than the rest of us.
The way I figure it, it takes about 110% of my brain power just to navigate correctly. Since I only have 100% at my disposal, I screw up about 1 in 10 times. With Lido on the leash, I had a lot more to worry about. When I hit the woods I was probably spending 20% of the time figuring out how we were going to run together and manage the leash. As a result, I got way off course many times on the first 3 controls.
Both of us settled down after that, and we were able to go pretty fast together and stay on course. In open woods and on trails, it was top speed for me, and probably 1/4 speed for Lido. We got wrapped around a tree only 2-3 times, when he decided his way around was better than mine. But he responded really well to a little tug to the left or right, and didn't get distracted by much, except other dogs.