JOK Chasing Sprint
On Saturday I raced the JOK Chasing Sprint at Whippendell Wood.
Prologue
I could tell that I have not done much orienteering recently and my route shows the silly mistakes I made. On the first control I managed to lose two minutes and end up in the wrong block of forest. I am still unsure quite what I did wrong and only relocated when I realised I was at the fourth control. I then compounded this by losing a minute going to five. I allowed others to distract me and messed around.
For me three minutes in lost time is the difference between starting towards the back of the pack in the chase and being fairly much on my own. Taking it steadily for the first control would have solved much of the problem. It was a shame as the course and wood were good. I was running fairly smoothly, though not fast enough.
Chase
I started well, chasing down the person who started a bit in front. However, my route to the sixth control was stupid – I miscounted how may paths I had crossed and ended up by the road. At this point the person in front went off into the distance and the person behind caught me up. I ran with him for a bit, but then died on the last few controls.
[...] while I checked exactly where I was going, which seemed sensible after the problems from the previous day. As can be seen from my route, I probably should have gone round the hill for six, but that did not [...]