Orienteering race (Foot) 56:15 [4] *** 6.6 km (8:31 / km) +140m 7:42 / km
spiked:14/
RMOC 2014 US Classic Championsips on the Round Mountain map. I tried to make some adjustments today-some of this worked but not always. One thing I tried to do was to adjust to the right of what my compass was telling me to do. This worked on the first control and a couple of others. However, on the second control I ended up way to the right of where I was supposed to be. I fumbled around searching more to the right and beyond where I should have been, finding several trail-o controls before correcting. This was a +4 minute error.
On the third control, I was right of where I should have been when crossing the road figured this out and was able to reinforce it at the fence crossing. My route took me near a campground which I went around, but a small dog chased me. Fortunately, I spiked the control.
On the fourth control, I aimed to the right again and thought I knew my position at an aspen/reentrant crossing. On the approach, I found a reentrant just before the one with the control, and I went down it nearly to the fence. It hen had to run back up the correct reentrant. This was a +2 minute error. I must have missed it by only a little bit on my initial pass.
I went around to the right for the 5th control, a little hesitantly but I did ultimately spike it. The sixth control was similar though I went more directly toward it, reading features along the way.
For #7 I went directly toward it, read the two boulders about 100m before the the control, then missed to the right, getting drawn off by the much bigger boulders. I lost close to a minute on this.
For #8, I ran across the field, spiking the control. For #9, I found myself off to the right when crossing the road in the field. I remember the intermittent trail coming up early but thinking my bearing was good, I followed a line of rocks to the wrong control. I wandered back and forth, then went higher. I saw a 2m rocky knoll but wasn't sure it was mine since it was so much to the left of my earlier attack. I saw others hesitantly approaching, including Steve Gregg, and I turned to it, getting there just before Steve. This was about a 4.75 minute error.
Going to #10, I wanted to put ground between Steve and myself since Steve started after me. Having rested in my wanderings, I was able to pull ahead, but more importantly, I was able to spike the control. Still concerned about Steve being nearby, I pushed toward #11 swiftly at first. When climbing the blandly mapped hillside with some rock on it, I slowed, but kept going on to spike the control.
I ran quickly out of #11 hoping that I wouldn't give away the control position to Steve. I found myself on the knoll farther from the fence than I had wanted to be so I corrected. As I passed the long straight fence, it did seem clear to me that there was a problem with the magnetic north/south lines on the map. I pushed on and spiked #12. Going almost straight toward #13, I saw Peggy ahead, coming from my right to my left, before the reentrant so I crossed behind her and got around the aspens. I passed her when she popped out of the aspens, and ran to my control. It was easy to find and see from far off. I hit #13 fairly quickly, passing an older runner in the possess. I ran somewhat hard after the Go control but the bumps were awkward for me, and I didn't want to injure myself.--I didn't go all-out.
Overall, I think I had about 12 minutes of error, and ran 5.4 miles. It was a disappointing end of the weekend orienteering for me.