Orienteering race 1:20:03 [5] **** 8.1 km (9:53 / km) +260m 8:31 / km
19c shoes: Silva Pro Lite
Ran-It-Granite, Long - I really liked today's course. It started off a bit easy, which I actually kind of like so that I definietly mentally into the race before we get to the tricky stuff. Although "easy" legs can be tricky in that you let your guard down, which is what I did on my way to #6. I had been having a pretty clean run so far and 5-6 was not a terribly long leg, going mostly down hill so I relaxed a bit and opened up my stride planning to just run on a bearing straight to it. Unfortunately, I relaxed a bit too much and wound up getting sucked farther down the side of the hill than I should have been and had that sudden stop, then, ummm, wait a minute something's not right here...oh maybe its just over here, no, ah maybe I haven't gone far enough, but...shit! Things proceeded like that for about the next 3 min too, because that "simple" control was located on a relatively bland hillside with little to relocate off of so I pretty much ran a full circle till I figured out what I did. So 3 min of error there. Ouch. From then on I definitely proceeded more cautiously, but made some pretty conservative (read slower) route choices that I probably didn't need to make. Also, the sun finally came out on my course, but it was just a tad too soon for me - I could literally feel the temp, not-so-gradually creep up to a rather uncomfortable level just as I was coming into #13, which was convienently the last control before the very technical section of the map before the finish. I didn't really blow any of the last 6 controls, but I bobbled several of them - exhaustion, coupled with the heat and the change in techincal difficulty made this bit of the course really tough. I didn't rock it, but I loved the challenge! I think I'm going to have to keep this map in mind for a future training - I've been meaning to replicate a training that I did with Tom Hollowell this summer, but I couldn't think of any terrain close-by that would work well for it. The training would be a one-man sprint relay set with with middle distance level of difficulty controls in technical terrain. Its a hike to get out the map, but maybe a potential summer short series?