Orienteering race 2:56:27 [4] **** 9.02 km (19:33 / km) +197m 17:38 / km
shoes: Columbia Romero trail runners
Green(2) course at Pawtuckaway, third year in a row. How to turn a 5km course into a 9km course (ugh.)
Seems like everytime I come back here I have to learn what a map scale is again. And pacecounting.
Did fine to #1. Got off to #2 in the correct direction but somehow got a little off (to the right I think) and proceeded to walk about 500m to an uncrossable lake at which I point even I knew I did something wrong. I believe I 180d multiple times to fool myself into thinking I was looping back to the control. Or something. Ugh. horrible.
Then on to #3. This time I started off going to the road (who knew a road leg could go wrong!). Tried to go in using the marsh as a handrail, though I knew were I was the whole time, and then once I was "in the circle"... surprise water feature where none should be for 150m at least. Ergh. Stumbled on the little trail; promptly 180d on the trail and figured it out a few minutes later. Came back and got it OK. Took me 1hr 30min to get to this point (maybe 25% of the course distance); should have been ~30 minutes if I was doing OK with some small errors.
After that I was too tired to make mistakes. Considered DNF, but figured "I only come here once a year, might as well give it an honest shot". And the rest of the O went pretty well. Found 4 just fine (went pretty much along the beeline) and saw moose droppings up top there. For 5 I got off the hill OK, followed the stone walls roughly and pinpointed my way to it -- minor parallel error in the circle but lost just a few minutes chasing another "pond".
Went to 6 straight on and hit it. By this point I knew I had to have pretty flawless orienteering to get back within 3hrs. And I just about did that. Followed the trail to 7 flawlessly. Wasted a minute or two on the wrong knoll for 8 and limped in fine after that. 2:57!