Training Log Archive: davelevine

Little Bennett - Red
17 controls; 7.7 km; 250 m

Actual Distance Traveled: 10.0 km
Actual Climb: 307 m

Started by helping with registration, handing out maps for the most part. Finally got started orienteering just before noon. If I had more time to orienteer than I would have done the blue course. As is I think I made the right call since it was about 2:30 when I finished.

I started off by heading in the wrong direction. I realized my mistake when I saw a creek where there wasn't supposed to be one. I rerouted and started to follow the creek (rather than backtrack). A minute later I realized I was heading south instead of north. This time I did backtrack but I stuck with stream until I got much closer to the first control.

I ran into a little problem when nearing the second control. The foliage was quite thick. I decided to turn east and head for a stream. My plan was to follow the stream north most of the way to the control. I turned north at the the first stream I found but it didn't lead me to the control. Before I went too far I realized that I was probably east of the control instead of south of it. I turned east and found it within a couple minutes. I'm not sure how I missed the one stream. The stream I did follow was not on the map although the draw it was in was on the map.

I ended following a couple guys from 3 to 4 to 5 to 6. The distances weren't very far and like me they seemed reluctant to run. I managed to get to 7 before them. I'm not sure if they were doing the red course.

I got tired of seeing other people so I tried something crazy when looking for the 8th control. I cut through an area where the foliage was kind of think. I was headed in the right direction (more or less) but thinking that I had gone too far when I reached a trail I started circling. It probably cost me 5-10 minutes. At one point I looked at my compass and thought I was headed south when I was actually headed north. I turned around and started to head in the other direction. It was a couple minutes before I realized my mistake.

I ran into a number of people when looking for the remaining controls, but none of those controls were difficult to find, nor did I make any stupid mistakes in this part of the course.

The weather was beautiful. The trails were very muddy. I ran into some thorns, but I managed to avoid any huge patches of thorns.

Red - Splits