Orienteering 1:50:22 [4] ***
24c shoes: Olway Tiger, sz 10
The Grunt at Hawn State Park (16.1 km, mass start with 2 skips allowed). This was great fun. A good long, varied course in superb terrain with all the intrigue of a head-to-head race thrown in.
The Minnesota folks really stretched it out at the start. I screwed up #3 by a minute or two so the pack of blue shirts were already well away across the slope to the next. I don't think #4 was a very good skip, but it seemed like a good chance to get out in front and just focus on orienteering, so I went for it, half expecting to see the pack approaching 5 when I got there. There was nobody and I only saw one other guy who'd also skipped 4 until the Runt runners started to appear.
It was strange not to know anything about how the race was going - I knew the others had a skip in hand, so expected them to appear at some point, especially when I was scrappy into 18, but there was noone except for a few glimpses of an MNOC top (not sure who). The orienteering was fun and involving all the way to the finish, which came surprisingly soon after taking the obvious skip on 23. It was very quiet in the finish area, but it seemed that noone else was back until Justin came in after a few minutes. The most fun I've had orienteering for a long time!