orienteering at grabouw

Today's race was a little too tough for me. I just couldn't get into the map. I'd be running in a green area (slow running, but is in fact really nice and easy) and I'd pass a huge boulder, which I just can't find on the map. Then you start getting worried, am I at the right place?

This was also the first race with my new compass, which really confused the hell out of me. I never run with a compass, and having a thumb compass on your map the whole time, is something to get used to. I just couldn't get the thing aligned half the time. Will need to practise that a lot more.

I also made some terrible mistakes on route choice again. I've realised that I get very tired, and then I try and do routes that will minimize the hills, and I end up running huge detours just to avoid hills (see no 14 to 15, and no 17 to 18). I also had a lot of difficulty interpreting the map just before no 6. The boulders and crags just seemed a lot further from each other than indicated on the map, and I think there was a fairly big cliff around there somewhere, which I couldn't identify on the map. The rest were all small errors around the controls, mainly because I was tired.

Course description 7.1km distance and 295m climb, total climb according to my watch 766m. And it took me 2 hours 42 minutes. The legs are hurting...

PS. Ansie and her mother did the novice course, from back to front... But that's another story.