Orienteering race 1:40:44**** 8.5 km (11:51 / km) +383m9:40 / km ahr:139 max:158 spiked:13/15c shoes: VJ Falcons 5
Red course at Blue Mountain. 6.6km straight line with lots of climb. Some areas are junky with deadfall but visibility was generally good and the map is very good. Nice course by Geof and Jeff, although quite physical.
Sizable errors on two controls. On #6 I apparently didn't bother to check my compass as I followed a stream bed about 90 degrees off from my intended travel direction (looking at the leg later, I had in my mind that I needed to descend along a stream when I really needed to head upstream, though with only a small climb). Was able to relocate on a stone wall about 300 m away from where I should've been. Probably lost about 8 minutes. Other error was for about 3 minutes on # 8 when I thought I went down the reentrant to the left of the control but was actually to the right. Fumbled around for a bit until I figured it out.
Sunny and in the upper 70s, so very nice, but warm for orienteering.
AOWN moment: Spotted a ~3 ft long black snake in the marshy area between controls 10 and 11. He was slithering away from me faster than I was going, which suited us both fine. I recall having seen one of his (somewhat larger) ancestors on a previous visit to Blue Mountain.