Orienteering 5:53:00 [3] 27.0 km (13:04 / km) +1375m 10:25 / km
shoes: X Talon 212-2
Green Corn "Moon" Rogaine. 6pm to midnight. Great Seal State Park, Chiilicothe, OH
Conditions: 84-69oF, partly cloudy, and humid. New moon.
Same as last year, started out south and then tried to get as many northern controls as possible.got the technical low controls first, but had some lost time on the slightly misplaced control, 61. Reached Rocky Road 45 min in. Proceeded south along the east side of the map, good nav to 41 and 70. The Hedge met a man at 70 who had given up 61. Side hilled, with slight hesitation on 62 and 57. Then we had a larger mistake on 51, we thought we were in the wrong reentrant, so we went to the next one over, but it turns out, we were in the right one to begin with. 40 was clean and 80 was mostly clean. 65 was misplaced, but luckily we were quick to spot it. It was in a re entrant, but was mapped on the adjacent spur. 73, 43, and 33 were very clean, which was surprising, because these controls were found just after it got completely dark (usually the worst time for navigation). Then came two unfortunate but preventable incidents. The first was that, when we returned to the water stop at 9:50 pm, the salt tabs were stuck to aluminium foil and had to be separated with a Swiss Army knife. Then, we made a 10-15 minute mistake on 31, the lowest value control. We didn't really have a good plan for the leg ( the control was on a vague, steep hillside) and had to attack it twice before we found it. The rest of the course was clean, mostly on trails in the north. We got 1 high pointer (83) but, unfortunately not the higher in elevation one, 76. Finished 2nd overall, 1st team.