orienteering 58:26 [3] 4.2 km (13:55 / km) +185m 11:24 / km
First orienteering ever at West Point! I was super-worried it would go like my first time at Harriman, but it didn't:) I guess I've gotten more experienced since then.
Anyway, it was bad at the beginning. Afraid to read the rocks, and then couldn't read the stream/marsh, which was my "safe" plan. Alexei said there was nothing wrong with any of my first leg, but just felt bad because I didn't know what I was doing.
Also a very un-fun race because my shoes kept coming undone. (I'd thought that making lots of double knots would be good enough, but it wasn't.) Stopped to re-tie them on the hill to number 4, but they came undone again at 5. Figured it was better to run with them untied instead of re-tying them every control. This went okay until I ran through a marsh and had to stop to fish my shoe out of the mud. Did a pretty good job of not being distracted by them and not tripping over my shoelaces, but I couldn't really go down rocks very fast.
Overall, a lot of stopping to try to read things better. The bright side was that I never ran off without knowing where I was. So I think it was worth the time spent hesitating, because I used to have such a big problem with thoughtless running.
orienteering 24:45 [4] 2.5 km (9:54 / km) +93m 8:21 / km
This was good practice for running with people, but 2 minutes lost on the first control was disappointing!!! I was going to the second paved spot and then looking for the control, but by the time I looked for the control I was already 50-100m too far! Yikes! If I'd been used to the scale I probably would've caught myself, but I definitely wasn't. The rest was better, except when I got out of contact with the map from focusing too much on catching Spike back. Also one slow route choice.