Orienteering race 1:14:59 [4] *** 5.94 mi (12:37 / mi) +390m 10:29 / mi
18c
8.2k = 9:09/k
A mostly good race; I spiked all but one or two controls, but made unfortunate route choice decisions on two legs.
5-6: A leg with 15 contours of climb along the side of a giant reentrant. I stayed low out of 5 and basically took a direct route a little left of the line, saving the climb till the end. Schirminator climbed immediately out of 5 to the yellow higher up the hillside, then contoured, and somehow was two minutes faster on a six-minute leg. Most interesting.
9-10: The longest leg of the course, with two major hill climbs. Erin and I both went left out of 9 (a bad choice) and promptly got involved in an eternal death struggle with a horrible morass of Manzanita and poison oak. Once out of that, I was able to tackle the other 95% of the leg, which involved giant hills. First down, then up, then down, then up, but on the second up, I got pulled off left by a too-convenient reentrant, then had one of those moments where things suddenly stop making sense. Confused, then figured out where I was, only to go to a different attackrock than the correct attackrock, and get confused again. I finally figured it out just on the precipice of plunging down the wrong giant hillside, and contoured over to 10. Four minutes behind Schirminator on a ~17-19 min leg, due to a combo of bad route choice and bad execution.
These two legs comprised at least half the total climb, and all of my 6:00-7:00 time loss on the course. Not coincidentally, two things I have never been good at are climbing, and executing long legs.
Black Magic is undefeated!