Saturday, May 19, 2012

Mille Lacs Kathio State Park Orienteering--Blue


A hot and windy day for this meet. Decided against better judgement to do the blue course.

CP1: went along E side of wetland instead of W. Knew where I was when I came across connecting ditch.
CP2: Headed for overgrown beaver dam to cross wetland. Spiked 2.
CP3: Still under the illusion to be able to preserve my dry feet for a little longer I rounded the pond S and got wet feet crossing narrow stretch of wetland. Spiked 3.
CP4: After wet feet wet knees Oh well, at least I spiked 4.
CP5: No trouble with 5 and 6, either, carefully following small wetlands and contours. Starting to feel rather cocky about this course.
CP7: First longish leg, proceeded with caution and spiked 7 as well. Skeeters are an impediment to map reading. Glad for the little breeze.
CP8: Took a little sightseeing detour and got very frustrated. Ended up heading for one of the larger ponds to get re-oriented. It worked but I lost 15'
CP9: Wetland-hopping in the right direction, but what happened. I misoriented the map and without realizing it I headed back towards whenst I came from. I decided to call it a day and clicked the lap button on my Forerunner. I turned around and spotted a CP. Could this be 9? Oh the agony, had returned to 8! Stephen arrived, punched and left again in the direction I had initially taken. I decided to take a longer and what I thought somewhat safer way, with lots of handrails. I made it to 9 just after Steven punched and I was back in the race.
CP10: Beat Stephen to 10, the only time I beat anyone anywhere during this event.
CP11: Spiked. Is this where I ran into Jim for the first time? I yelled "Hi Jim" and fell on my face.
CP12-finish: no further issues except my exhaustion.

I was sopping wet from sweat when I got in. Picked off the first tick when I was changing at the car, four more while I was driving and one last whenI got out of the car at home. I am so glad I hung in there, better to finish slowly than not to finish at all. Some nice flowers in bloom, large-flowered trillium and some others. Multiple deer, woodpeckers and tons of mosquitoes about the size of pigeons.

Distance noted on the map: 10.1 km. Distance clocked on my Garmin: 14.1 km. Pete did a great job setting a technical course and it was a treat to run in a pretty much trail-less area.

Results at Attackpoint
Results at MNOC (I like that one better because I am not as far back)


Some souvenirs from Kathio:

I found this deer tick latched on to the crook
of my elbow. Called my doctor who suggested
prophylactic treatment with 
Doxycycline. 




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