...was definitely the way to go.
I know I donĀ“t have the legs for much faster running this year so my placings for all of my other races except this one have been around 10th place.
When turning my map around I saw right away that it would pay off to be extra careful and not make any mistakes (I may not have been smiling like TGIF though).
I had a slow race without control mistakes but still was 4th for the day - 13 mins behind 3rd - since everyone else seemed to have had at least one major problem.