CSU Park-O at Cat Rock. After battling through Cambridge traffic, I arrived at about 7:05. I didn't want to keep everyone waiting, so I rushed through my pre-race routine of dressing and warming up. I felt stiff from my tempo workout yesterday. I had acceptable flow today, though my run had plenty of avoidable hesitations and time losses 10-20m from the controls. Cat Rock could use a revision, as it took some work for the quickroute to match the terrain. There also has been some recent construction.
I was very confused at 1 after I left the trail from a poor mental picture of the circle. I left 2 in a weird direction and ran along the trail to reestablish a clear picture. 5s of "qua?" in the circle at 6 and 7 when I didn't see the flags. I ran low to 9, which was a bit longer near the end; I hesitated at the stone wall before the circle. I was stabbed by my right eye by red briar in the circle at 10 - hence the blood on the map scan by 7. I was very confident on my route choice to 12 via the trail after seeing the swampy vegetation. I almost overran 14 on the trail; I expected the swamp to be much more visible from the trail. I missed 15 right, but that may be due to the map, as my line is parallel to the leg. Some hesitation leaving the trail into 16.
Quickroute. All splits were ranked 1-3, lost 49s to Superman. The field wasn't that deep, so those statistics are somewhat misleading.