orienteering 52:10 [3] 3.71 mi (14:03 / mi) +860ft 11:31 / mi
shoes: x-talon 212 #2
HVO/WCOC A meet, day 1, M60 GreenX, 5.3 km, 250m. Pretty good navigating. The legs seemed to have no zip, but maybe that was just because of all the hills. Who knows.
Main event of the day was this was the first test of my new left eye. I've obviously been checking its vision compared to my right eye over the last week and a half. After the first couple of days after surgery, things calmed down and the vision close up is definitely better than with the right eye. Where there is a contour line, I pretty much see a contour line, as opposed to the right eye, where I see a fuzzy contour line, and a shadow, and some other random interference and blurriness. Though I do have to have the map very close to focal length distance from my eye; otherwise things get fuzzy very quickly.
So anyway, today. I'm not sure I'm supposed to be orienteering -- gardening is not allowed to avoid getting dirt in the eye -- and if the doc knew I was going orienteering (and knew what O' was), he might have banned it. But he didn't know….
It's not like the map was suddenly simple to read, especially on the run. But it was a lot easier than what I've been dealing with in the last year or two. When I stopped to look carefully, the dot knolls were dot knolls, the boulders were boulders, the cliffs were cliffs.
I still thought the lines were thin and the symbols were small and maybe things were a little fuzzy, and so part of me was still a little disappointed in my vision. So I was really really happy to hear the experts talking afterwards about how bad the printing was and how small the symbols were. Because I could still make sense of things a whole lot better than two weeks ago at the NAOC. :-)
And that was even with changing eyes, normally I read the map with the right eye, so I had to make some adjustments. But still, yippee!
Note that my overall vision still sucks. Get the new right lens (and a special pricy one to deal with bad astigmatism) this coming Thursday, and then after that settles down new glasses for far vision and maybe new contacts. And then I'll really know where things stand. But today was sure a pleasant surprise.
As far as the rest of my O' today, dead legs going up any hills, good free-fall going down, good navigation (missed at most 30 seconds). And, it should be said and repeated, a wonderful forest.
Other than that, a pleasant morning working at the start, get to see lots of people. It means running without having eaten for about 6 hours, don't know if that made a difference or not. But an easy way to make a small contribution to the job of hosting a meet. And when people held out their e-punches for me to check the numbers, I could actually read them.
If this progress keeps up, in another month or so I'll be able to read road signs. :-)