West Point Sprint, Brown
We had to wait about 4 hours between races. The first thing I did was wrap up my calf and take some ibuprofen. Then I ate and visited and took a nap. That felt good.
After the nap, my calf was feeling OK so I decided to try the sprint. I felt a twinge once or twice but it was fine for the most part.
In the recent past, I have had a terrible time at sprints. I go out to fast and get brain dead. Today I was determined to be careful to the first few controls. We could all see the first control, so that was easy. I was still running a bit faster than I was reading the map (I didn't see route choice to 2 and was surprised that the control was downhill) but I settled into the next few easy controls.
I hesitated a bit to chose a route from 6 to 7, but I didn't stop long enough. I looked at the left route but didn't see that it went through. So I started right but got a bit mixed up and had to backtrack to the stairs.
I couldn't tell which side of the wall 9 was on (still not able to read map/descriptions well on the run) so I started straight then backtracked when I saw it was on the other side. I never saw the option to keep going straight and take the stairs.
On 11, I wasn't sure which side it was on, again, so I took the longer route around in case I had to backtrack.
I was getting tired now and missed 12 and had to go back up to it. That was annoying. I pushed into the finish but not as fast as I should have. Nancy got me by 1 second! I suppose my mistakes could have been a factor, too :)
Minor mistakes are still a good sprint race for me lately, so I'll take that. And it's easy to fix: more sprint route choice exercises for me!
Always lovely to run on this map. I had fun dodging the tourists!