Race Evaluation
US Champs, Day 1: Blue
mindsweeper
| 1. | On the road until the slight bend, then on compass, over hill, bingo. | ||||||
| 2. | The open was really soft, so I crossed over to the forest early. Found the cliff and other rock features on the line. | ||||||
| 3. |
Did not check features en route Read map too late Bad map reading Hesitated Unused to map +04:00 | Contoured very well, but didn't read map well enough to realize the green stuff at the end was mapped. Ended up looking around in the stony ground just south of the control, contouring back across in case I had run too far. Met Tom running the other way. Turned around and followed Tom back to the green, then finally followed my intuition and climbed straight into it. (Wish I had someone to chase me in the right direction the first time around. | |||||
| 4. | Contoured to reentrant, then climbed by the stream. Tom went straighter / further to the right and gained a few seconds. | ||||||
| 5. | On compass. | ||||||
| 6. | Around right through fields. Tom stayed in the meadow whereas I climbed to the trail and ran on that. I think it provided more sturdy footing and shortened the distance slightly. Tom was out of sight by the time I disappeared into the forest for final approach. I was able to use the vegetation to find the control. | ||||||
| 7. | Contoured and found the green patches, around right of them and straight into the control. | ||||||
| 8. | Around right of the ridge, then corrected left. | ||||||
| 9. |
Unused to map +00:15 | Veered left towards the meadow, then stopped at the right time and noticed the control 90 degrees to the right. It was further from the meadow than I expected. (Been running too much on 1:10000 maps.) | |||||
| 10. | +01:00 | Should have gone right, but went left. Tom caught back up. | |||||
| 11. | Straight. | ||||||
| 12. | +00:45 | Down the ridge, then by the clearing (saw the road) before going down again. Over the spur and then started realizing how shallow the reentrant was going to be. Tried to be careful but missed right. Tom came running in from the right direction as I had to sprint back up to it. | |||||
| 13. | Around left (maybe thinking of the success of control 6). A straighter route may have been better, since this was the last leg with climb. Used bigger cliff as attackpoint. | ||||||
| 14. | Contourish down to road, then blindly into the green with no plan whatsoever. Smart. Figured out where I was after crossing stream into green spur NW of control, but was too far N after climbing up the spur. Then ran south and found in. As usual, Tom showed up around the time that I found it. | ||||||
| 15. | Tom ran around left, I ran more straight, which was slightly faster. | ||||||
| 16. | +00:30 | Past the cliffy hill on the left, veered a bit too far to the left but corrected. Found the rock with a lot of water and a stick with velcro but no punch. I should have figured out it was not the rigth feature, but I was puzzled by the punchless velcro stick. Tom pointed out that we were at the wrong feature and we continued to the knoll. (Communication between orienteerers!!!) | |||||
| 17. | +00:30 | Veered a bit right but caught myself on steeper terrain, and headed back into the forest once I reached the reentrant W of it. Distracted by a lot of yellow streamers. Then Tom crashed in from the N and I realized I was standing 30m S of the control. | |||||
| 18. | Down the hill! | ||||||
| 19. | Contoured down but made sure not to go all the way to the bottom. Had to climb slightly at the end, but a very good split. | ||||||
| 20. | Instead of trying to rely on fine navigation, I veered right towards the clearing. Was a bit uncertain when I found it, and went all the way around to the W corner, then SW into next clearing. Then back E to control. Very roundabout way to get there, but at least I didn't get lost. What do you know, Tom showed up and punched at the same time as me. | ||||||
| 21. | Went way too far W and ended up by the cliff of the hill by the clearing. Easy to find it from there. | ||||||
| 22. | Slowly, and carefully straight. Should have run quickly to the clearing to the N maybe. | ||||||
| 23. | No reason to aim carefully, just run fast towards the road. Hit pretty close to the control. (Easy to see where it was because of the finish chute.) | ||||||
| F. | 80% effort sprint. |
Total Time Lost - 00:07:00