Orienteering 1:09:36 [4] 8.79 km (7:55 / km) +320m 6:42 / km
QOC McKeldin Blue - sadly, an uninspired blue course to close out the year. Setting aside the seriously (given my direction of attack) mishung control #5, which I spent ~5 minutes searching for among the other mapped rock features on a very steep slope before I found it on an unmapped rock out of sight upslope, and rehung it and the differently mishung streamer beside the correct boulder, and two other controls that were/may have been slightly off, there were two massively long doglegs and a general lack of legs that called for very much O technique beyond the ability to follow trails and other obvious handrails and keep track of your progress along them. Not quite literally a long orange course but little more interesting than that, in one of the handful of QOC parks that actually has a fair bit of interesting rock detail. Ted Good is apparently in the habit of giving today's course setter a critical appraisal of their courses after each event they work on so I guess I won't pile on. At least they didn't manage to misplace anything by quite as much as Sid did with his furthest off the mark control last weekend (fixed by the time I got there).
Didn't feel so great physically but apparently a lot of that was the often steep climbs - managed to claw back the time lost to Boris, who started not long after me, on #5 and a little bit more by the end of the course. Shirtsleeves and no head covering or gloves, summer weight O pants, and I still felt overly hot at times - not a usual problem on QOC turf in December. No white Chirstmas here unless the weather takes a major dive over the next not quite two weeks. Not that anyone expects a white Christmas in DC. I wonder if the bad guys using snowmobiles in Northern Virginia back when Die Hard II was made was even halfway plausible then. There certainly can't be many skidoos in VA these days.