Orienteering race (Sage Stomp Middle) 58:35 [4] 5.7 km (10:17 / km) +200m 8:45 / km
shoes: La Sportiva Cross Lite
And I thought I had a shit race in the morning!
Felt exhausted from the get go and struggled to move through the terrain.
OK for the first 7, though never really felt able to match up the map with the detail, then the mistakes began:
#8: misread the feature spur as a gully and hit the depression next to the spur the control was on. Not seeing a control where I expected, ran out and back in - same feature. Ran all the way out to a track junction and back in and found the flag. 4 mins wasted... Grrr.
#9: had no idea what was going on, lots of blobs of different coloured vegetation on a hillside with open corridors in between. They were all clumps of pine trees and they all looked the same to me? 1 min of standing still and head scratching until I decided to trust the contours.
#13: wow, just wow. It's been a long time since I've had to practice a full on relocation, but I have no idea what was going on there. Picked a super conservative track route. Unfortunately towards the end the track disappeared and the map made zero sense to me - could make nothing fit. Even after I relocated and walked on a bearing to the control, I could make it work. On the plus side it was pretty nice looking forest, there were deer running round and the snow had lightened to a nice atmospheric floaty flakes (it was kinda like being in a Disney cartoon) instead of the hail I started in. Did I forget to mention the snow. Apparently here in Logan Lake, a forecast of 17 and cloudy actually means 3 and snow. But I digress. ~7-8 minutes lost.
Decided from here just to go slow, read the detail the whole way and just try to work out how the mapper has interpreted the vegetation.
I couldn't. Pretty much walked the 100m 15-16 and couldn't make a thing fit.
Conformed when I got back the contours were pretty dodgy and generalised in places. Shame really, it's a tough and tricky enough area as it is - doesn't need to be made any harder!
Was knackered after, haven't been that tired after a race in a while.