Last Friday was a US orienteering team fundraiser sprint, in Peterborough NH at Shieling Forest. Both Ed and I went up, Ed to work results of the e-punching and me to just sort of help out where needed. I decided that with enough tape, anything is possible, and went out to run the course. Although my speed wasn't great, since I was being pretty hesitant, I ended up second. My plan was to run a perfectly clean race, and I failed completely at that, but it was clean for the second two thirds of it.
I've been having issues recently getting off to a fast start in sprints, the first control (and all the stuff getting there) is just coming at me too fast. This was no exception, and I felt overwhelmed the whole way there. But then I decided that I was good to try to run a little faster, and totally overshot two, ending up in the wrong reentrant since I had gotten off my compass line. This cost me over a minute, and so I tried to make up time to 3, which was a mistake since I ended up overrunning it and costing myself another 15 seconds. I didn't learn from my mistake, and overran 4 as well. This was getting frustrating. I yelled "Focus!" and that seemed to do the trick, because I was clean to 5. At this point I could hear a guy catching up to me, and I went into stealth ninja mode. Can't let someone catch up!
Unfortunately, he caught me as I was leaving 6, he probably heard the beep as I punched the control, and he passed me on the way to 7. I then tried to catch back up and pass him between 8 and 11, somehow navigating well while focusing on my competitor but just unable to run fast enough to get him. 12 I was a little too far to my left, and attacked from the trail, which worked well, and then I saw him leaving 13 as I got there. I was sort of slow going to 15, unfortunately, and that was the last I saw of this guy, but I was pleased that I ran as well as I did while trying to pass him back. I think other people in the woods tend to help me focus better.
Since my ankle held up so well in the woods, I figured I'd try running on the streets. CSU was holding a street-o (actually I was hosting it for CSU, we rotate who sets the course each week), and I'd designed some intervals. Unfortunately, you can't really do control-picking on a street-o, and the full course was 10 miles, which was a wee bit too long for a Tuesday night. Luckily, you could choose to do some of the intervals. I ran controls 4-9 and 12-16 as intervals, each one was about 1.5 miles, which was far more running than my legs wanted to handle. They sure don't do speed too well right now, because I am SORE today. At least my legs went fast, they are just paying for it two days later. The map was basically impossible to read, but because its a street-o, you have plenty of time to figure out where you're going as you run. I guess I have an advantage since I know these streets really well, but I ran perfectly clean!
And then we gathered at my house for some delicious chili and Ross's apple crisp. The only point of running is the eating afterwards, right?
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