Garmin distance 5.02 miles with 201 m climb.
Wheaton Regional Park - Ah, a return to orienteering, in the cold, at one of my least favorite parks. At least registration and results were in the Party Room at the Train Station. Considering that it was 18 F when I left the house, I was happy that we were going to be inside today, despite knowing that I wouldn't be able to hear myself think at some point.
With the addition of a light pair of gloves, I was perfectly dressed in long sleeve, short sleeve, tights and headband for the 20 F that greeted me at 9:45 AM.
Today's format was a mass start at noon for the advanced classes, but I was happy to go out early and work the epunch shift during the mass start. Based on your normal course, you were supposed to do from 0 to 5 of the windows, taking the controls within the windows in any order. I guess I could have done 0, since I am Brown W now, which meant that I didn't have to do any of the windows, but just traveling between the windows didn't look like much fun. Or, I could have done 2 as a Green W. But, after turning over the map, I decided to see how much of it I could do, though I immediately eliminated the second window. It just didn't look too appealing to me.
The path out of the Start.
The miniature train tracks.
The trails were in good shape with just a light dusting of snow.
The woods were a bit scruffy in places, but very runnable in general, especially for Wheaton.
A huge rootstock coming out of 21.
With a bit of whimsy stuck in it
Considered doing a gratuitous culvert crawl just before 27 but thought better of it.
This was a fun course, especially for Wheaton. I felt fit, and the only real error was losing concentration a bit and turning left instead of right when going from 7 to 14. After this error, I kept running into the same guy with his little dog as I looped around the next window. It was pretty amusing but getting old, so I was glad to shake him after M.
Enjoyed my stint at the computer, especially after a large number of people exited the building for the mass start. :) Thanks go out to Sam L. for going to the office supply store for more printer paper, as I left the resupply at home by the front door.
Later, I was awarded the style points award from David (course setter) and Heidi (meet director), supposedly for making the whole windows think happen. I think this was just their way of saying that they missed me last month. I guess I better get those results done before I eat the rest of the candy.
Then we tried to arrange a Fab 50 portrait after noticing we were all in red. It didn't go so well at first, as the lineup toppled over.
A pretty good one,
and, then it started going downhill again after that.
Thanks to everyone for a fine event at Wheaton. It may have to move up a bit on my list after today.
It was a good day. ;-)