Orienteering race 57:00 [4] **** 5.7 km (10:00 / km) +250m 8:12 / km
ahr:150 max:165 shoes: Spikeless VJs
Relay Green.
So, my strategy was to try to catch up to Mihai and do my best to follow him around the course. I din't know if either would be possible, but it seemed like a good idea.
I actually did catch glimpses of him on 1, 2, 3. Then I took a straighter to route to 4 and got there first.
More or less even to 5.
Then 6. Major naski! I mean, seriously! I wasn't really Orienteering on that leg (after our divergent legs reconverged) and it was a bad idea. We hosed that control. I think it was a 10 minute mistake, but hard to tell.
I decided to find the control on my own after a while - another bad idea as I saw Mihai flying down the hill, although he classily let me know that he had gotten the control. (I may have had it first had the pit I was trying to relocate on not been obliterated on my map.)
Anyway, now I could do my own thing. Going out of 7 I saw Steve Gregg, who I guessed was on my course, indicating I was in third. Continued on, losing 1+ minutes on one control and a bit on the penultimate. Mihai finished 1.5 minutes ahead or so.
So, I guess the relative result wasn't bad, but both Mihai and I had bad times on the leg.
Towards the end of the course, I finally felt like I could run, for the first time in the week. My finish was really good, although I unfortunately don't have a good split...
Note
All in all, despite bad orienteering in each race, I was pleased with the CO trip.
While running was a struggle, it seemed to get progressively better.
I had a bad headache in the afternoon/evening of day 1, but that was it.
I hope that the complete malaise I felt in WY last year was an aberation due to the flu I had most of the time rather than an inherent inability to run at altitude.
Still, the idea of flying out to do a high altitude meet for the weekend (eg. US Champs, etc.) seems like lunacy.