Letchworth State Park. Middle Champs. Green X
This was my worst race of the weekend, navigationally speaking. I was not precise enough in the circle and lost time on almost every control, hesitating or not going directly to the control. I think I was feeling some pressure to continue to do well, and it made me feel a bit too frantic. Luckily, I was still pushing hard enough to take another win...just 19 seconds over Mary Jones...phew!
On my way to #1, I saw 3 other women on my course looking for the control in an area that was just halfway along the route. That made me slow down and question where I was...I mean 3 other people had stopped here. But since I was pace counting, I knew I was no where near the control yet, so I kept running, never 100% sure that I was correct until I hit the big stream right before the control.
Hesitated after I saw #2 since the description said "foot of hill" but the control was definitely on the top. Passed too high on #3, but looked back and saw someone punching into the control, so went back. Good route choice along the pond/marsh to #4, but then thought the control was in the big marshy reentrant. Stopped at the base, looked up the reentrant, but didn't see anything. Trying to figure it out when I saw a crowd of folks punch in at the control in the tiny reentrant. Ugh!
Bad route choice to #5 had me clawing my way out of the gully. Decided to stay low on the spur to #6, but was too low. Hit the big reentrant and had to climb to the control. #7 was good...finally! Had a 1 second hesitation at #8 when I saw another control on the power line tower, but looked right and saw my control. Had a slight hesitation at #9 when I read the description as "vegetation boundary" (as did Sharon), and could only see a wide open low area and a small knoll. Checked the control code, saw it was mine, and thought "alrighty then".
Luckily, the final small loop went great, so I didn't lose anymore time there. And, once again, I lost 2(!) places in the finish chute. I really need to work on my sprinting speed.