Orienteering 1:09:11 [3] 3.33 mi (20:47 / mi) +60m 19:40 / mi
slept:7.5 weight:190.8lbs
Hoyles Mill Conservation Park, MD. I ran the Blue course of the USA Team Trials. I'd mapped the park and had been involved in the revisions made from Dave Linthicum's original course designs. Though the course had been vet by David Onkst and Peggy, I also had been to all of the control locations and most of the legs between the controls. All of this gave me a lot of leg-up on getting through the course.
It was unfortunate for so many good orienteers to experience the park in the overgrown conditions that are just normal spring to summer growth. It is normally difficult to navigate in the park during the winter, but today it was much harder to see mapped stone that is key to refining a bearing. I was amazed at how fast the top men and women runners finished. They were just above target times, and given the conditions, that was remarkable.
I ran pretty cleanly, being able to recognize places and even what particular mapped rock looked like. It still took me paying attention to what I was doing. Physically, I kept a steady pace, not pushing hard. My back and left knee have been hurting so I've been taking time off. Like many, the control I had the hardest time with was #1. I attacked from a known stony ground but had a bad bearing putting me left of where I needed to be. I lost about 30 seconds. I paused in a few other places and perhaps lost time that way. I was leaving #2 when I realized that I didn't start my GPS track correctly. I started it just a short way after #2.