Orienteering race (advanced) 1:26:09 [4] *** 6.28 km (13:44 / km) +47m 13:14 / km
spiked:8/11c shoes: Inov8 ORoc280-A 2013-08
Take Control Short Advanced training course, 4.4km SL, on the Ecowellness Centre and the Barrens map, 1:10000/2.5m
Temp started in upper 40s with partly cloudy skies and a breeze, about 50 or so when I finished. Wore gloves on the jog to start (into the breeze that I had originally thought was blowing the other way) but I tucked them into my waistband as I waited to start.
8 good controls...that's why we do this, right? In the first part of the course (controls 1-7) in the Barrens area I mostly ignored the contours where there were only 1 contour hills because they were confusing. The open areas, marshes, and ponds were more distinct.
Navigated the first five perfectly, and even got ahead of a few folks on the 4th and 5th legs, but the flag at 5 wasn't on the east foot of the cliff as described! Looked around the cliff a bit, then checked out the next hill south until others came to the same cliff and found the flag tucked behind an unmapped boulder next to the cliff (I knew I should have looked there too). Grrrr! Lost a good 2 minutes.
Off to 6 which I did fine on, but then I tried to take a slight different route to 7 to not be part of the crowd, and I messed it up, ending up farther west and having to hook into it from beyond the point. Another 2-3 minutes.
Fine to 8, taking the shorter route around a marsh to the south (and crossing the outlet on a beaver dam) vs the north. Then headed out to the road rather than straight through the woods for 9, which was a good choice for me though it seemed to take forever to get to the trail which was a muddy morass anyway (ran alongside before deciding to cut the corner). Found 10 okay too, but then messed up the execution of 11, the last control. In a race situation I likely would have taken the safe trail route with a decent attackpoint, but I was attempting to stay closer to the line. I misidentified which marsh I skirted and wandered way longer than I should have when things didn't line up. My split vs Janet Findlay's was about 8 minutes longer, so a big mistake. I think I forgot by this point that the contours were only 2.5m. Still, time on this map is always useful.
No falls today, but I did poke my upper arm into a tree branch...that's gonna hurt.
With the nicer weather today it was much more pleasant to hang around afterward, though still on the cool side. I'm glad we came to this event. Thanks to OOC for organizing all the fun events (though we didn't take advantage of the other map training that was offered).