Orienteering race 2:56:00 [2] ***** 7.0 mi (25:09 / mi)
shoes: Salomon trail shoes
Pawtuckaway Green course, nominally 4.1k/140m climb. Winning time was 41 minutes(!).
Not a good day in the woods for the home team. Although I (thought I) fully recharged my Garmin Thursday night before leaving for work on Friday, when I powered on, it said Low Battery and turned off. Dang. That, coupled with flailing around trying to find the 1st control, made me come back, change watches to just a time-of-day (not even multi-split capable :() watch, and get a new start time.
2nd start. Still failed once more to find #1 on the first try, but eventually found it. OK to 2 and 3, then went walkabout going to 4. I first found 5, then thought, oh, this should not be too difficult to do 5-4-5, but I somehow managed to reach 4 then go on a scenic tour of central Pawtuckaway swampland before regaining contact and finding 5.
Then, to 6, which was maybe 125-150m from a trail. I still managed to botch this control, making several attempts, and getting quite flummoxed in the process. At one point, I found a control (not on my course) and was ready to dnf, when a Red runner came up and I asked him to show me where I was on the map. His control was about 25m from the trail, and I once again botched finding 6. So I bagged it, bailing to the east to pick up the trail somewhere. While walking back to the finish, I decided to try to find 8 to the end, which I managed OK.
Bleah.
Note
With copious thanks to jima, who lent me a Garmin charge cable, I recharged my Garmin for Sunday, and verified that it behaved well while walking from the pavilion to and from my campsite.