Orienteering race 1:07:55 [3] *** 5.34 km (12:44 / km) +126m 11:23 / km
spiked:8/11c (injured) shoes: Inov8 ORoc280-A 2013-08
Got to start (saying hi to my brother as I checked in) just a few minutes before I was called; had to push through mingling kids to clear and check my e-punch.
Brown X, nominally 4.3 km / 100m. Gorgeous sunny day with temps in the upper 50s.
Remembered from notes that the first control was common to all courses and punched okay there, then headed off into the woods to 2. Tried to stay headed mostly north but drifted more to the right than I planned. Hit the trail before control approximately where the ditch heads off it; it was a bit green there, so carefully cross trail and see a bag to my left. I thought I wasn't quite to mine but it looked like a charcoal platform so checked code and sure enough it was. Straight to 3 via the platform on the other brown course.
Caught up to Judy K who was headed to the right around the water tower so I went left and followed the stony ground for a while hoping to note either pair of boulders but never did so angled off to hit the big trail and go in from ther. Then whoomph---down on the ground. I think I caught a toe on a rock or stick and my right knee went into another rock or stick and hurt like the dickens. Flashback to 2009 when I got (what I think was) a bone bruise on the top of my tibia which took forever to get better. Ever step was now painful, especially when jogging, but I got up and slowly kept plugging. Made it to the trail, turned the correct way, and used the charcoal platform next to it to head in to the circle ditch. Saw Mary Jo coming in as I was headed to 5.
No problems to 5 and 6 (162 and 155, also on Green X), then another long leg across the broad spur to 7. Rather than try to follow the line and climb 3 extra contours, I contoured around heading SW. Actually saw the bag at 4 from a distance as I headed more S hoping to hit the intermittent trail or creek and head in, but vegetation pushed me around a bit. Saw a flag & water--not mine...is it the platform in the index contour? Took a bearing, saw a flag and water from a distance and checked it though it turned out to be a stone pile not a platform, but it being the only stone pile in the area I quickly headed to the control. Charlie, who I'd passed on the way to the first flag I checked, arrived just after me.
Better to 8, straight to it, then tried to use the spur to head me correctly to 9. Alex J and others headed in the same direction helped. East to the trail, which I followed up to the big depression, the bearing up the hill, behind a bunch of green course folks headed the same way. Didn't see/couldn't make sense of the trails but spotted a flag--on a depression--mine. Found the wide "path" that led to the Go control and then in.
Emergency crew was working on someone's ankle but I managed to snag an ice pack to put on my knee for a while. It sure hurts to bend the knee, as there's a half-ping pong ball-size lump in the dimple on the inside of the knee. Turns out there's another bruise on my other knee, a bit lower and not as painful, so I iced that too. We'll see about tomorrow. I seem to be able to walk okay but running may be too uncomfortable to consider, and steps/steep climbs/descents would be almost impossible.