Orienteering race 1:39:03 [3] *** 6.58 km (15:03 / km) +270m 12:29 / km
spiked:5/10c shoes: Jala Jukola Spider 6 #3
HVO local meet at Ward Pound Ridge in Cross River, NY
Hamstring/glute nagged throughout the run, but not a major distraction except on downhills. May consider painkillers before A meet courses. Perhaps should have worn Active Ankle too, for some of the steeper downhills where I was being extremely cautious (slippery leaves, too).
Three of my 5 non-spikes were close to being spikes, but I was a bit off line and in two of the three cases checked another similar feature within the circle before going on to the correct feature. The other two were just inattention, mostly, and maybe a bit of distraction, so I have to work on those. Not a lot of people in the woods, so when there weren't distractions I did well.
Biggest mistakes: To 6, misread a trail bend and didn't properly check compass direction and was too far to the right. On 8, I was too far down the hill (trying to ignore the stone walls and read the terrain) and was confused by the Brown course control farther down the western stream (whose feature was actually described as end of stony ground, but the flag was hung along the stream. However, mine was described as stream/stone wall jct, so I should have been looking for the stone wall). Wasn't sure where along the stream I was and looped around a bit to the north before heading back to the control I saw and corrected.
I managed to keep my feet pretty dry in most of the stream crossings, but the last bit across the waterlogged field south of start/finish was unavoidable (and mentioned in the meet notes). I only went in about mid-calf though we saw a few, floundering up to their knees, who took a different route.
Judy Dickinson finished in ~95 minutes; I know I had at least 4 minutes of error just on #8, and a minute or so on #6, plus 30-60 second bobbles on 1, 2, and 3.
Nominal distance: 5.1 km (no climb listed, but from 4-5 there was a good 12-contour climb over the last 1/2 km--not much compared to the red course's almost 20-contour climb in less than 400m to Joe's Hill, though :-) ).
Good to talk to Lyn, Judy D, Judy K, Dave W., etc. again. Down to NJ to visit Greg and Stevie and have dinner at one of their favorite hang outs.
Interesting roadkill notes: On drive down to the event, saw what I think were a small mink and a beaver (at two different places). The first was a weasel-shaped animal with brown fur, probably no more than 9-12" long; the other was rather larger, and had a noticeable flat tail.