Quickroute
Ali designed a control pick on Big Island - an area I seldom visit. While waiting at the start for the group to incrementally start, the topic of my propensity for cheering came up. Especially since Ross's cacophonous voice departed for Scandinavian shores, I have tried to escalate my own cheering. Perhaps it has been obnoxious, but Stephen elected to follow me out of the start, assaulting me with positive encouragement and whooping. I figured he would stop after a short distance, but he stuck with me for the entire course. I did my best to ignore him.
Excepting small bobbles at 1 and 9, I had a fast first 9 controls. I missed low to the right on 10 and the density of the vegetation discouraged me from my initial effort to correct. I relocated and reattacked, but lost about 3 minutes. I didn't see control 14, which was in a vague reentrant, until pausing and moving around in the circle. I hesitated at 16. At 18, I ran down the correct spur just ahead of Lori, but missed the low hung streamer by about 10 meters. A quick scouring of the spur revealed nothing, so I relocated to reattack and saw it the second time. Perhaps I was tired, but I went one hill too far at 19; I figured things out, but Brendan and Andrew had caught up. I kicked into a higher gear into 20, and punched with Brendan. I hesitated for a few seconds at 21, and took a slower route to the finish through a marsh than did Brendan.
In general, I had good flow, though the inexcusable number of errors I made interfered. I should have run the pick slower and more cleanly to really focus on reading ahead, flowing, and pinpoint navigation. It was nevertheless a pleasant run.