Orienteering (Ultra-Long) 3:11:00 [3] *** 10.1 km (18:55 / km) +390m 15:51 / km
shoes: Poison Ice Bugs
U.S. Ultra-Long Orienteering Champs - This wasn't as bad as my only other Ultra-Long race in early 2008... it was much, much worse. The disturbing thing is that I'm not sure what lessons I can take away from it. I knew I'd be moving cautiously because of yesterday's ankle sprain, but that certainly didn't cause me to finish almost an hour behind the winner. (Great job, Peggy!)
The race started on a muddy track pockmarked with deep ruts and horse tracks. We had a 150 m marked run to the start triangle, and I knew it would be a great time to look at my map, but I was afraid for my ankle. I took a quick glance after about 60 m and caught my toe in a rut and went sprawling face first into the mud. The other members of my start group were still with me, and I said, "Well THAT's a great way to start", and a very serious fellow runner said, "No, it isn't." Um, yeah, no kidding. But following up on yesterday's goals, I found the start triangle easily and executed a good route to #1. So far, so good.
After that, my goal today was to remain focused for the entire race - stopping to review the map if necessary rather than making poor route choices. I thought I had a good route choice to #2, and I was really careful going there, but I still ended up wandering when I got to the general vicinity. Unfortunately, I can't put my finger on anything I would do differently. In this area - and also in the area of #3 and #4 - it just seemed that the map didn't fit my style of navigating. There's no question that visibility played a role - it takes a better navigator than I am to be precise in relatively bland areas when there are leaves on the trees. But it also seemed like I was seeing more features in the terrain than there were on the map - although I don't know much about maps. I do know that some other people did just fine in this area of the map, so I have to take responsibility for not being skilled enough to deal with it.
I was one of the earlier starters, and eventually the woods around #2 became crowded with other wandering orienteers looking for the same control. I was the one who eventually found it, but as the first person to arrive, I got the longest split - yahoo. My journey to #3 was a similar experience of matching map and terrain - but far more disastrous when I overshot the control by an embarrassing distance, arriving at a water control on a road (!!!) I briefly considered dropping out because it had taken me so long to get just to #3, and my ankle didn't need more exercise. But that would be a really dumb thing to do on a day when my goal was to stay focused for the entire race. (Woo hoo - I stayed focused for 3 controls, two of which took me longer than an average middle distance race.)
Things actually went OK after that. I wasted a couple of minutes around #4 because I hadn't read the control description, and it looked like a hilltop on the map when it was actually down by a stream. Yay - finally an error that's easy to fix in future races. From there until the end of the course, my only problem was a minor overshoot at #6, but only a couple of minutes wasted, which isn't much in a race this length.
So... my goal of staying focused for the entire race was achieved. That's the good news. The bad news is that I'm so rusty at competitive O that being focused didn't help. I just wasn't skilled enough. I'm not beating up on myself - that's just a fact. If it really were possible to be good at O with as little practice as I've been doing, then it wouldn't be the awesome sport that it is. So hopefully I'll find opportunities to get more training!