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This was my first orienteering event of any sort since the Beer Chase in early June. I probably should not have tried the Blue course but I did anyway. It was not an easy course but it wasn't extremely difficult either. I made my life difficult by making a number of silly mistakes. I was able to correct them but I probably lost 15 minutes due to a lack of concentration.
Here are some details:
I set my compass wrong when I left control 4/103. I should have set it to northwest, instead I set it to northeast. I knew something wasn't right when it looked like the golf course was in my path but it took me a minute or two to figure out exactly what I did wrong.
There is an unmapped re-entrant between controls 6/104 and 7/108. From past experience at Lake Needwood I knew the map wasn't perfect. I hesitated when I came across the unmapped re-entrant but realized very quickly that the west side of it wasn't the downhill I was looking for because I had not gone far enough from 6/104.
I got distracted a number of times by other people. One of those times was when I was looking for Control 10/107. I went right past it on the first attempt. It wasn't in plain sight but I might have found it on the first try if I had been paying closer attention to the terrain, in particular the slope just north of the creek I was walking along. When I saw a trail heading north up a re-entrant I knew that I had gone too far and needed to double back. I found the control without any trouble on the second attempt.
Control 21/148 - This one was very well hidden. I had to circle around once before I found it. Even then it was only with a little help from someone else who was more or less standing on it.
Control 22/149 - This one gave me even more trouble. Once again I got careless and wasn't reading the terrain as carefully as I should have. It wasn't until I had gone a ways past the control that I figured out that I must have gone too far. I doubled back and found the control on the second attempt without any trouble.
While traveling from 24/146 to 25/148 I made a couple mistakes. First, I could have sworn that I set my compass to northwest and was following it faithfully. Based on where I hit the road and the GPS data from my watch I headed west until I hit the road. I'm not sure how that happened but the evidence speaks for itself. When I got close to 25/148 I walked right past it. I couldn't have been more than 10 meters from it. I miscounted the re-entrants and thought I had one more to go. When I got to the road I knew I had made mistake, took another look at the map and doubled back. The control was exactly where it should have been and where I should have looked the first time around.
Anyhow, as usual I finished it last place although I was less than 4 minutes behind the person who finished just ahead of me. If I could have just avoided one of the many mistakes I made I might have not finished last. Despite the silliness, I am quite happy that I finished the course.
The weather was beautiful. No rain. The temperature was just cool enough.
I used my GPS watch for the first time for orienteering. It worked great; better than I did.
After the meet I had to pack up the meet kit in my car. It was a lot of stuff. I had to put the back seats down. I had help loading the car but I was on my own when it came to unloading. It took me about 10 trips and 30 minutes to move everything from my car into my apartment. In three weeks I will reverse the process, load up my car for the meet at Swanson Road which I will be meet directing for the second year in a row.
Course: Blue [Controls: 28; 9.2 km; 295 m]
Time: 3:27:57 - WinSplits - RouteGadget - AttackPoint
Actual Distance Walked: 13.33 km
