Flying Pig Middle Distance - It's been a long time since I've done a competitive traditional O race, and it's one of those things that goes more smoothly with practice. Not so much the navigation practice, which I've been doing lately - but racing practice. Mental skills like staying calm enough to read the map more carefully, taking a couple of seconds longer to come up with a strategy that could save me more than a couple of seconds in the execution. Given my lack of recent O racing practice, things actually went fine overall, but I felt like I did "pretty well" on most controls, and seldom did "really well". And of course, there were a couple of sloppy controls, which is to be expected in a 19-control race when I'm out of practice. It wasn't until the end of the race that I remembered to try to go fast - not that I'll ever be one of the speediest runners, but I can go faster if I'm feeling more confident about my route.
Anyway, it was a fun race. I enjoy the excellent Flying Pig maps and the interesting terrain. Lots of mud is guaranteed here, and we had heavy rain for 18 hrs before the race. I was tempted to use snowshoes, since it's been so long since I've orienteered any other way!
Sid and I started close together, and ended up running from #3 to #4 together. In one of my sillier moves, I decided on principle to leave #4 in a different direction from Sid, since I knew we are close enough in ability that we could spend the whole race together, which wouldn't be interesting for either of us. This is one of the times when if I'd looked at my map more closely, I would have seen the nice trails and clearings leading to the next control - instead of bashing through tangled bush and a slick gully just because I wanted to be independent. Oh well... Sid and I had a good chuckle about it afterward.
I won my age category by 10 minutes (with Peggy, Barb and Kissy not here, amongst others), but only won 11 of 20 splits, which backs up my theory that I could use more racing practice! In most cases, I was within a few seconds, but there were two controls where my time was 50% higher than the best split. Oops. There wasn't any mystery - I knew I'd flubbed those ones! Oh well, it's all a great learning experience.
Sudden was the top GHO racer, finishing an impressive 4th in the WRE while suffering from a cold.
I think it's because he had the biggest cheering section. (And that doesn't even count his brother Per, visiting from Sweden.)
My travel companions were smiling at the finish line too. Bender looks happier about his race than he actually was. What do you think, folks - should he keep the beard for his wedding?
Meanwhile, Tiny got into the spirit by dressing up as Captain America.