Red at Nobscot
Decent run, and I'm happy with it. Nice day out in the woods, despite the foreboding morning weather. Realized that O could be in the cards at 10:30, in Gloucester, booked it to Cambridge to grab my stuff. and punched the start at 12:05ish.
Didn't really feel on point through much of this race, lot of little bobbles and didn't really ace too many controls. Wasted a lot of speed from 3-8 or so - was with a much smarter person moving more slowly at each control. Sure they got a great view of me doofusing my way to the next control, again and again. Felt pretty staccato throughout, and not particularly top-speedy.
Took a few object lessons to learn that navigating by faint trails in nobscot is a bad idea - they're under solid leaf cover and many are easy to cross or pass at a junction and not realize it.
In retrospect, kinda beat the crap out of myself today. Booted a leaf-covered rock midtrail and went down hard - and then had a lot of extra boulders on my map. Surprised it doesn't hurt more, which probably isn't a good sign. Chased by a pair of large angry offleash dogs on the way to 10. Managed to jab my achilles with something (same foot), - didn't know you could funnybone your feet. Found a tick pre-shower - smaller than most dog ticks, but not so small that I think it's a deer tick. Had bitten, but wasn't really embedded. Got the head out intract, and it didn't leave a mark. That, and my fingerstick elastic band was way too tight, and the tip of my finger was asleep most of the ride home.
Got one of those doofy
GUTR sweat-troughs I saw at WM5D. Looks stupid, has a stupid name, works great.