Saturday, December 08, 2012

The Pit and The Pendulum

The pit of doom. The pits. Pit-iful. Yes, it was another fail. I'm beginning to think I'm a little bit shit at this orienteering lark. At least this time I was surrounded by a couple of decent orienteers who where in as big a pickle as I was. Eventually they conceded defeat and headed home. I didn't. Nineteen minutes later I eventually found the pit that was control eleven. It was just such a damn confusing control. There were literally tens of pits in dense-ish forest. I was in the right area (the far right of the route trace) but just didn't lock into the right pit.

Up till then I was going okay. I had hit the controls pretty well and hadn't made too many mistakes but I wasn't able to cover the ground as quickly as I'd hoped. I kept getting snagged up in bramble. I got a bit shredded on a couple of occasions. You get to the point where you are losing so much time you just have to push through and take the pain - cuts and all.

Although I still think I'm improving, I can see it's going to be quite a while before I'm any good. However, I'm sure the skills I am taking on board will be helpful out in the mountains for proper racing...

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