Maps! Yay!

This was a lot of fun and I think I worked the relay aspect to my advantage.

S-1 Started in a nice path and train of women, but they all dropped off to the right as we crossed the trails. Successfully ignored them and hit the control alone.

1-2 Aimed to cross at the bottom of the green and got that far before slipping in behind someone to hit 2 round the side of the hill.

2-3 Forking split, alone to 3, compass, looking for low/marsh.

3-4 Alone to 3 means alone to 4 -- though I could see several others running above me. Adjusted my line when I hit the trail as the open area looked too far. Then looked for the reentrant off to the right before hitting the depression.

4-5 Took as many elephant tracks as possible through the messy stuff until I saw the tip of the OOB area (streamered), then over the green hill.

5-6 Nice track here, also women starting to converge.

6-7 Lost a bit as I started to head out of the control the wrong way (momentum?). Those ahead cut into the woods earlier than I did but it was the same either way.

7-8 Finally with a pack, except after the bridge they all keep left, which I don't like. So I leave them and carefully head up the monster hill -- next to reentrant, compass past rocks, aiming for the top. A few others nearby which was comforting, because the tracks around here were few and far between.

8-9 Taking it more slowly after the climb to make sure I don't blow up. Ran with a few others on parallel lines.

9-10 Everyone fanned out. I should have stayed on top here but thought others were going too far right (some probably were going to the other forking, so they may have been too far right for me...). I saw the cliff but didn't adjust my direction despite being left. Ended up hacking through the green splotch until I saw the bare rock ridge. Phew, I was worried for a bit on this one!

10-11 Caught up to an NTNUI runner and couldn't quite pass. We took a very well-worn track straight to our cliff.

11-12 There were three of us together here, leapfrogging the lead until I started climbing after the cliffs and the went up a bit after. They stayed just in front.

12-13 This was a bit scary, especially since I initially thought control was a boulder. We climbed to the first level of rock/cliff and then contoured. Unfortunately I stopped short and started searching a bit high. Meanwhile a train of ~15 women storms by below me and head right for the control. Argh. They probably saved me from losing more time, but now I was behind all of them. Significant place gain loss here.

13-14 This was just a train. Passed a few, but that look a lot of energy.

14-15 Train again, though it was starting to spread out.

15-16 I had had it with the slightly-not-fast-enough train at this point so I took a different route here. Alone on top of the hill, though good track. Saw the leaders of the pack heading in just before me. Maybe break even so far, but then I lost some time/places hesitating to get to *my* control, which was the second 16. Found the tracks confusing there.

16-17-18 Train.

18-19 Took my own route again but this time I don't think it was the best idea. Should have stayed lower/less angular with the pack. At this point there were 3rd (and maybe some 2nd?) leg runners mixed in, too, so it was getting crowded. Intersection AP worked great.

19-20 Pretty sure I should have taken one of the trails here. It was hacky in there, and not well tracked.

Legs felt good through to the finish. Quite satisfied.

Not as brutal as I expected, lots of trails.

S-1 Played it safe, running all the way until I could see the trail junction, and then down.
1-2-3 Just a matter of jumping off of trails at the right time. OK.
3-4 Had trouble working out what to do, I don't handle all the trails well. I weaved around on them, aiming for the big hill before the control, and around it. I think I should have taken a straighter/less traily approach -- the hill from the road was pretty clear. But running in the terrain is slow and tiring that it's good to use trails when possible.
4-5 Again had a tough time deciding what to do, plus ran out of the control the wrong way to start, just a map&brain wrong way mistake. Decided to cut through the woods to the trail up the hill, cutting across where it flattened. But this was slow. Hard to imagine going all the way around is faster, but maybe cutting farther up over the marsh? Not sure what is best here.
5-6 Straight would probably have been fine here. Played it safe, though.
6-7 Too scared of missing to go fast!
7-8 Feel good about this one, had a plan, followed it, went fine.
8-9 Had a plan, let myself get pulled down too much. Recovered but probably cost 3 minutes or so. A few women hit the control as I did.
9-10 Hopping on the trail for a bit worked well for me - hit this one again as the others did, and they were certainly faster.
10-11 We all ran hastily to the left of the control and quickly recognized and recovered. Should have had a picture of that reentrant in my head (plus perhaps slightly better direction).
11-12-13-14-15-16 Quickly lost all the women who had caught me -- I was having trouble reading the trails, I usually think they're lines of cliffs, and they just flew ahead. Not much choice here, just jumping off of trails at the right time.
16-17-18-19-F Urban section, just to get us home, not much choice or possibility of screwing up. From splits it seems I'm definitely moving more slowly, even on the easy stuff. Makes the rest seem more tolerable, at least.

This was a pretty straight forward course and fun. Felt fairly strong running. Didn't make all the best route choices.

S-1 Got spit out pretty far after the underpass, took me a few seconds to get my bearings.
1-2 Had read the control description, "thicket", but still was expecting something like a bush and confused when I didn't see anyhing. The slope was steep.
2-3 Meant to run diagonally after the first set of buildings. That would have been better.
3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10-11 All of these went fine, I was working hard to stay ahead on the map. Running fairly hard, getting tired.
11-12 Whoops. The right route looked shorter but it meant turning around, going the way I'd just come, uphill, and then go down some stairs. So I took the lazy left route. Didn't think it was that bad (split is okay place-wise), but I ran the leg in my cool down -- 30s faster to the right!
12-13-14 Okay
14-15 Didn't see the gap in the fence past the control, but actually it's not much faster -- also ran the other choice afterwards and it was only a few seconds faster.
15-16-F Okay, working hard still.

This was decent. Bummed about the route choice -- tired decision making is no good. Takes work to make yourself do the right thing.

After Wednesday brainfarting today I wanted to make sure I was not worried about speed, just trying to orienteer properly. Mostly successful.

S-1 Took the safe route on mostly trails, with a bit of an overrun along the way.
1-2 Contouring and looking for the cliffs/hills.
2-3 This was the low point of the course for me. Hit the cliff at the end of the narrow hill as my AP, but then it seems I didn't have good direction control from there. Seems I was about 15m left of the control and I couldn't make sense of anything. There was wet stuff, hilly stuff, yellow stuff, green stuff. Spent 7 minutes standing and trotting around. Finally saw the flag, though not because I had made sense of anything. I quickly left the area without further considering anything. Need to be really careful with direction from AP.
3-4 Route was fine, but then bit off on a control on the cliffs instead. I had gone through something rocky, so I thought I was headed through the rocky ground, parallel error.
4-5 Right route was easily executed, including the approach to the control. Phew.
5-6 Again not awesome direction control, though I knew I was left and it was a quick grab.
6-7 Took a while to decide to go left but again, easy route to execute.
7-8 Easy route trail, then over the marsh and between the cliffs.
8-9 Got a little excited and dropped off to the right, but realized those were not the same cliffs...
9-10 Tried to stick with trails on dry land as much as possible, then just up the reentrant pointing to the control.
10-11 Good direction but missed the down-to-the-right aspect.
11-12-F Tired.

Very fun course, and fun multiplied by running no compass. That made 5 and 6 a little trickier, and there were a few places where a compass absolutely would have helped me run faster, but I had a nice thing going most of the time.