Biking 41:21 [3] * 11.9 km (17.3 kph)
spiked:5/5c shoes: Jamis Dragon Sport 29er
Blue to yellow and then park roads/path from the Riverbend access road.
No issues other than I lost two minutes taking the shortcut from yellow to Riverbend, then not finding the control, before realizing they meant the actual spot yellow crossed the Riverbend dirt road. Ooops!
Orienteering 2:07:21 [3] ** 10.3 km (12:22 / km)
spiked:5/9c shoes: INOV8 285
Although I thought we should easily be able to clear the course in the remaining three hours, I still chose to go west for the six control loop so we would have very easy drop options on the eastern controls - very easy to manage time with that route.
24 - this was difficult just because the walking looked soooo much nicer on the other side of the fence! We aimed off and got it.
26 - straightforward, go west and follow it down
27 - trivial
31 - makes me think there are parts of Island Lake that should never be o mapped. There was very thick fight. I had hoped we aimed off. I misread a reentrant as the mapped one - it was not, so we quickly decided to go west from where we hit the swamp line. The swamp was not an option - thick reeds and muddy. The bank also sucked. Eventually I saw it. Fight leaving 31 in the general direction of 32 was just awful. I crawled repeatedly. If there's an easy game trail in or out of there, I never saw it.
32 - trivial
28 - argh, gps shows we tripped through the circle. Lots of fight just below the top of the spur, so we couldn't see the spur proper and thought we might be on it, so we didn't fall off as much as we should have. I figured I went too far north, but it always seemed like we might drop off. Awful fight getting back along the river again. Then finally saw the spur with slightly better visibility from the north AND THERE WAS A DAMNED TRAIL LEADING RIGHT TO IT ALONG THE SPUR. So we took that unmarked trail back to the dam. Edit: hiking trail was probably on the park map we got, which I didn't think to look at much. Not a good move.
29 - trivial
25 - trivial
30 - some fight as well, but slightly more passable than 31 and west and north of 28. Almost went wrong way up the powerline since I didn't know if we succeeded in aiming off, but a kindly racer who'd just punch pointed me back.
Tried to talk Jeff into a sprint finish, no luck. We walked it in, barely beating coworkers Crissy and Jeff, who are shown one minute after us. They have really done well, as this is only their third race.