Orienteering race 54:53 [3]
Ha! Okay, I think Fort Steilacoom is my course. This is the third time I've won here, and I think that I've won less than 10 COC races in my whole career!
What's more exciting though, is that both Nina and I had reasonably clean races, and I still squeaked out a win against a "runner." I'm surprised by this, because I ran a pretty chill pace for most of the race, until number 15, when I thought, "oh geez, the race is almost over! Maybe I should run faster." Then I ran a comfortable tempo, and kicked into the finish. And thank goodness, because that got me the win.
Basically, the way the race went down between Nina and me:
Nina stretched out a 1.5 minute lead on me by taking 10-20 seconds per control on me through number 9...
Then I got a minute of that back on the long leg to 10 (did she make a mistake or did I have a better route?).
I almost blew it on the way to 14, when I got onto the wrong trail. But spidey senses went off and I busted through the Junipers and popped out with the control 10 yards in front of me. Whew! Still in striking distance.
The clincher leg was number 16. I turned up the pace, and despite being bobbly in my approach, it was enough to give me the lead.
It's exciting to play the back-and-forth scenario in my head, even though I never even saw Nina that day! (watching our dots on Route Gadget, even without the routes, is pretty fun)
This is also the little bit of encouragement I need to get back to a training plan. Hmm... what should be my target race? The Fishtrap Goat? It would be really great to be on-form when there's an opportunity to hang on to some faster/similar runners in a mass-start...
I need to bug Gina, Julie, Emily, Alison, Sue, and Abra to all be there, because that would be a fun PACK!
Yes, yes I think I am motivated by the Goat.