Orienteering 1:37:27 [4] 14.8 km (6:35 / km)
WOC Long
Happy with this. Not a perfect race, but I pushed physically (just wish I had more - another month, perferably two, and I would have) and I think I made the right big choices for my trail versus terrain speed. Occasionally I think I should have favored the trails even more and perhaps would have gained a couple minutes.
Because of my trail/road running preference, the race seemed like a trail race plus a few control-pick o-tervals. In a way, I'm disappointed because I think the training courses at Gillingsrod favored straight more than around and I would have liked at least one hard, long leg that made me pick my way through this terrain.
The running in terrain was hard out there, harder than Gillingsrod, exactly for the reasons the Bulletin described: high heather/blueberries and logging work. It's amazing how much having your stride continually broken can slow you down.
Had a small mistake on one control, about 30m off trying to find a control on the edge of a green marsh. But other than that, just hesitations were slowing me down on the short legs. Probably a bit more cautious than really required, but since I was moving slow through the terrain, perhaps it was actually the right cautious-level.
The race was fun and I dealt with most of it's challenges well.
I finished as the first woman (started 6th- didn't have a 4th WRE race to round out my score to where I shoudl be) and stayed in the lead for a bit, until a woman from Hungary got me by 9 seconds. No leader chair or even attention for me though, because the focus was on the top men who were finishing at the same time. Think they did announce me once, when I was in 3rd place right after they switched commentary over from the men.