Orienteering (Foot) 3:31:10 [3] *** 18.85 km (11:12 / km)
203c
The Mega at Pawtuckaway State Park, NH. I went out on this world record course (for the most number of controls in a single race) behind Ted Good. Dave Onkst, Peggy, Samantha Saeger, and Suzanne Armstrong started shortly behind me. Since my watch didn't hold enough splits, I intended on taking every 5th control split and trying to remember by counting the number of blue striped controls. Flubbing #4 by trying to rely too much on memory got me right away behind Dave, Suzanne and Samantha. I mostly felt on top of things through the first 64 controls, often running with Suzanne. Clem and a Canadian passed somewhere in this. I didn't realize the map extension overlapped and messed up a leg 65 putting Samantha and Suzanne ahead just when I thought I might be able to pull away. I spent the next couple of controls recovering and losing my place on the map a lot. Next Will Hawkins and Wyatt Riley came through. I got on their train a while. I lost them somewhere after The Slot but soon caught Suzanne and Samantha again. At #112 where everyone was searching for Will's glasses, I only had to wait about a minute before Phil Bricker found them. The crowd was slow to go after this but I got in behind Jon Torrance and Will for a while. After the beaver dam crossing on the way to #120, I lost Suzanne. Eventually I started feeling like I couldn't keep up and know where I was at so at #136, I paused and reorganized my control codes. The water stop at #138 brought me back in contact but by around #153 I needed to let Jon go again. On the "long leg" to #158, I was right on line but pulled-up short. John Frederickson came through but he had somehow already been to the 8m pillar, #159-161. When I got there, Jon Torrance was still there. I ended-up chasing him more but I was slowing down. At #176, I misread the map (ignoring the control codes) and presumed the control was on a boulder so I pulled-up short. Samantha and Suzanne had been steadily gaining and caught me there. Together, we caught Jon around #181. On the last loop, the running was faster and more open; we lost Suzanne somewhere around the parking lot with the "fodderack" on J.J.'s car. Somewhere around #200, when I first stopped at the recreation course control, Samantha and I lost Jon but soon gained Ernst Linder. Samantha lead in to the finish. This mind numbing exercise was still fun in a wierd way. It would have been a bit more satisfying to run more by myself but I wanted to run fast too. The many 100m legs were conducive to it too. I didn't keep track of splits the way I wanted nor did it register to me much when I got to a blue striped control--I had no idea how many there were at the end as I lost count by around control #75. I kept losing place of which control I was on and sometimes went with the crowd. If I do something like this next time, I'll prepare a punch card system.
