Orienteering 1:06:00 [3] *** 4.0 km (16:30 / km)
10c shoes: Inov-8 X-Talon 212
Terälahden Koulu
Running the 16s course from the grano games, with 3 min starts.
Started well, happy with the first 2 controls. Start of the third leg was good, then crossed the creek slightly too far left so I missed the big gully. I think I was still on track mostly but ended up at a control further along on a cliff on the side of the hill. Unfortunately my watch still isn't working and I didn't have time to grab my phone before my start so I have no way of checking with gps track. Relocated and decided to go back to #2 and start again and focus and do it properly. And it was fine when I concentrated and followed my plan. Careful to #4 which was fine, then not so much to #5 which lost me time again, but I was finding it hard to distinguish what was mapped and what not, because there was so much there. When I got to the control I think I must've been close the first time I went over, but not quite far enough to over and left to see it. Then I went right and back before returning back over the gap and starting again. #6 was fine, slightly confused just after crossing the creek but checked compass and was fine. #7 was fine, decided to go high to have more visibility out of the green and then went down to the control from the bare rock. Was a bit confused by the rocks for #8, there was a lot more in the terrain than I was expecting from the map. Curved north a bit much but was able to correct thanks to the vegetation boundary.
I learnt a lot from this. There were good bits when I was focusing, and then bad bits as soon as I lost focus. Super annoyed about the lack of a gps track because my Garmin has given up on me. I need to look up more and also just to think more and think quicker. It was good to run a bit more on this course, though my legs are feeling fairly tired now.
For tomorrow, I want to have better contact all the time and work on exit direction and get into some better control flow.