Orienteering (Foot) 1:37:53 [4] *** 9.7 km (10:05 / km)
spiked:22/25c slept:8.5 weight:169.5lbs
QOC: Hemlock Overlook Regional Park, VA. I did the Freestyle Long course--it was a fun score-o with no time limit other than being in by 4pm. The time limit was not totally trivial since Peggy and I were splitting watching Max (I got a lot of help from Dasha Merka and the Lennon family). Victor Lin was the course setter and setup the event to be similar to a rogaine. Victor stated the distance of my course to be approximately 9.2K though my route was not quite as efficient as that. It was too bad that I left my GPS at home too. I wonder how far I really ran. I started running a few seconds after seeing the map for the race and didn't do any extensive control planning. I made a few errors but none were big. Perhaps the worst was one in which I looked for a depression in a small clearing (#133). Having reached the clearing I expected to see the control on one side and missed seeing it for about a minute behind some grasses on the other. I also over ran a pit on a ridge (#137) and missed a shallow ditch in some green (#120). I also had a change in direction going first for one control then changing my mind when almost there to go for another. I left the geener areas in the north which also happened to have some steep hills for the end. With only one water stop early on and it being somewhat warm, I was running out of steam by the time I got to that loop and was a bit slower than expected. I was a bit disappointed at not having broken 10 minutes per kilometer. Besides the small errors and sub-optimal route, there was a fairly good amount of climb and an unfield checked green area that contributed to that.
