Running 20:00 [1] 3.0 km (6:40 / km)
shoes: 201311 Inov-8 X-talon 212
Run from the bus to the start. I actually got lost and ran down the wrong trail with Nadim before turning around, but I arrived at the start with about 5 minutes to spare.
Orienteering 1:16:03 [4] 9.9 km (7:41 / km)
24c shoes: 201311 Inov-8 X-talon 212
Classic race; my Garmin was dead, so no data. I was in a good state psychologically coming into the race - I didn't know who was starting around me, I was focused on my own performance, and I slept pretty well the night before. The woods immediately turned out to be much greener than I expected, with stabby scraggly shrubs thoroughly dispersed. About a third of the map was green slash. The navigation wasn't difficult; most of the challenge was route choice and negotiating the green and climb.
I had a solid run, but there is much opportunity for a better race. Controls 1-4 were fine, but I made a sluggish attack up to 5, going too low on the spur and surrendering some climb. For reasons I don't quite understand, I lost 30s on a trivial two minute trail leg to 7. I had a good time to 9 (though lost to Zach Schroeder on red), but then lost 30s on a short easy leg through white woods to 10.
I chose the best route to 11 and narrowly eked out a fastest split (via the two hunter's stands), but chose to run on the road to 12 and lost over a minute on that route choice. I fared somewhat well with the green bashing on 13-16, though I was seriously disenheartened. I was very discouraged around 15, after I crawled through some pokey stabby stuff to get to the road. Controls 17-24 were all fine, though I kept losing time to ebone especially, who put the hammer down.
I was delighted to find myself in third, less than two minutes down on Will and Eric, but Kenny, Sergei, and Eddie didn't run today, so the field was pretty thin. I especially need to become a faster runner - I'm unacceptably slow both in the woods and on trails. The AP graph is informative. The two stupid minutes I lost on 5, 7, and 10 plus the minute on route choice to 12 were more than enough to push me out of contention, though the four of us stayed close to each other in the results. Kudos to (new nemesis) Will Enger for an excellent showing this weekend.