Orienteering race 2:23:27 [5] **** 9.6 km (14:57 / km) +395m 12:24 / km
spiked:17/14c shoes: Icebug Spirit 4
National Championships Long Red-Y at Letchworth East.
Opened 1 along the road and then used the white band to reach NW effectively.
Things going reasonably well at the beginning. Wobble on 6, but good plan (back to trail from 5).
Thought I was lined up well for 9 with a distance and direction, but knew something was up when my stream ended early and there was no control... Took a couple passes to get to where it was.
Then the rails came loose on 10. I really thought I had taken a slow pace, careful line out of 9, and the re-entrant should be _there_, and it wasn't. What followed was a half dozen attempts to re-calculate where I was, and make another go at it. It ended up being above where I started, and I did not climb back up high enough. I'm confident I was close to it the first pass...
Reached 12 by taking the road past the finish area and climbing past 16, trail to trail to trail. (when checking, I did not see an effective way across the large stream and up - that climb looked non-fun.) at least the road and trail was passable grade.
To 13 was straight and contouring around the hillside on the other side of the stream - and directly past 15. There was another control on the edge of the dropoff between 15 and 13, and that was a good reset of position.
Slower and careful to 14 and back to 15.
Around the hill and through the saddle back tot he trail and 16, and then a run in.
I'm figuring 21 of the 26 minutes lost on 9 and 10. And that extra effort hurt my pace for the remaining hour out on course.
Any benefit of being on home-turf is outweighed by manning the start line for the duration... ooch. On the plus side, I did eat my snacks 40 minutes before starting, and never felt lacking in resources. (and drank whenever I passed water).
25 of 34. 5th of 5 M35+, but second USA qualified participants, so another silver.