Orienteering (Foot) 1:09:04 [4] 7.8 mi (8:51 / mi) +265m 8:01 / mi
slept:8.0 weight:184lbs
QOC: Balls Bluff, VA. Peggy, I and the kids arrived late so we rushed out. I didn't get a clue description on. I'd skimmed the course notes the night before and recalled a bit of trail-o being mentioned but I thought it was going to apply to the White course. Just before going out, Peggy and another guy did. The other guy seemed to take a while to leave the start. It turned out that I did that too; I just couldn't find #1 or the start triangle. I lost between 45 seconds and a minute. It didn't help that I went to the wrong control. I did the same for #2 and for that I had little excuse but not having control descriptions on my arm. I didn't want to unfold the map for them as I was reading it. I only went to one of the wrong controls for that.
I was a little shaky going to #3 because I was getting used to the mapping of the reentrants and kind of lost count. I wasn't sure which ones were counting. I didn't lose any time. I was solid going to #4 too.
For #5, I did pause a while looking for a good route. I ruled out going to the right along the cliffs because it was a long climb with a steep climb through green at the end. I thought going left was too far around and didn't eliminate enough of the trails. I went straightish taking some trails and bearings across open forest. I got forced by vegetation more to the right and the trail at the end, but I spiked it leaving from before the knoll at the end. I spiked #6 going straight too.
For #7, I was happy to be able to run through the low vegetation. I came off the road at a fence end and had a small animal trail leading to the reentrant. I went around on the left to the trails, including the vehicle track. I spiked that coming in off of the fight vegetation corner to the north--I could seen the control from there almost 100m out.
For #9, it was just straight on. I was not sure how high it'd be--the hill kept on going!
For #10, I went just right of straight and ignored most of the trails near the parking lot. I dropped into the big reentrants and came up the spur at the end. I went a little left at first for #11 to maximize the runnable terrain.
For #12, I got left of the reentrant and onto the dam. I took the road up and attacked from about the corner to spike it.
For #13, I went straight but at the stream, I had to pause and turn to get to another crossing. I'd hit the stream at an earth bank. I read the contrours on the other side well and didn't get fooled by the dot knoll higher up. I did however have to drop a short way to the control. I'd understood that the rootstock could have been the dot knoll because it was too small to be classified as a root stock on this map. Somewhere around here, I'd realized that I hadn't made a mistake yet--a rarity. I hoped to keep it up.
For #14, I ignored the trails, passing just north of the parking lot, and down a spur toward a steep climb. To not get slowed too much by it, I angled left. That meant I had to correct to the right once I got on the ridge. I ran around the large reentrant and dropped right into the reentrant at the control.
For #15, I moved a little to the right initially, but mostly went straight.
For #16, I hugged the property line. I made sure not to get into the open area crossing one reentrant along the way. I saw the control from across the last reentrant.
For #17, I went straight and into the stream valley. For #18, I got my feet wet crossing the first stream. It was wet and leafy enough that I decided that climbing to the right would be best. I did that and passed Amy Loudoun who was walking the hillside below me. At the end, I crossed the last reentrant and walked-up to the control.
I wasn't that strong so I went a bit to the left, partially crossing reentrants near the tops. I was able to keep running the whole way and I hit the finish right at the control (seeing the pavilion from far off made it easier but I didn't see the control until the very end).
This was a pretty good run for me. I was happy to not have made any errors. :) Having gained some weight, I did feel it climbing hills. If I can stop working late, and hit some better weather on nights that I get off closer to on-time, I really need to do more running. I thought Daniel Heimgartner set a great course for the available terrain. The terrain was also a star with really open forest most of the way. I'd seen a few areas driving-in and near the finish where someone had been doing a lot of work to pickup the deadfallen branches and put them into piles. That really helped too. I tend to make more errors in places that are green and I didn't have much of that to deal with today. On a side note, I was wowed by how close the splits were for Vido and I. He and I compared them and our routes afterward. We'd taken a lot of very different routes but got to a lot of those controls only seconds apart.