W. Cape Orienteering Festival Day 2

Day 2 was a middle distance course and while it did not over a big area, it was pretty tricky because of the straight-line forest navigation and sketchy vegetation features.

After yesterday's OK, but not exemplary run, I was a bit more cautious today. That my first control was slightly dodgey, I was even more cautious for the rest. 

Overall, my navigation was actually pretty spot on. I wasn't feeling confident and the terrain was such that I walked, tramped or sort of jogged. This did allow me the pleasure of seeing hundreds of fungi. Loads of Russula (brittle gills) and more deliciously edible boletes than I have ever seen. I actually stopped briefly to look at the biggest one I've ever seen - way bigger than my hand. If my phone had not been in the back of my backpack I would have taken a photo.

There were really only two errors that I made today. The rest were just cautiously slow. I didn't have to hunt for any of them. 

Control 1

Man, I hate messing up the first control. 

I didn't want to chance an uphill and forest vegetation so I ran around on the road, taking a bearing from the bend. I overshot and I was a bit to the right. I decided to turn around, get back to the road and try again, when I pretty much walked on to the control. 

This shook my confidence a bit and set the stage for the rest of the course. While I walked on to most of the controls and didn't have to hunt, I wasn't really trusting and felt what was almost surprise when I found the controls where I thought they should be. Haha so silly even after all these years. 

Controls 5 and 6

I came into 5 a bit low, saw the road, which I knew I shouldn't be seeing. I can only say that it was with luck that I was in the right alignment to walk deeper in and just find it. 

I'm then not sure what caused me to make my next mistake... 

I took a bearing from 6 to 7, thinking that I was at 6! I got to the road, realised that I should have been going 5 to 6 and not 6 to 7. So I ran on the road and then ducked into the forest and got the control. That would have been bad if I'd missed 6. 

That was really it for any drama today. 

I found that the nav today took a lot of focus and attention. I used my compass for pretty much every control and really tried to use direction, contours and vegetation to hit them straight. 

Hilton beat me by two minutes. He had a big error that took him about 16 minutes to find a control. I didn't have any of those big mistakes but most of my controls were a bit slower than his. 

Jacori had a good run. She beat me by almost 5 minutes. I think she had two big errors but was consistently quicker on the rest. Over 18 controls, a minute faster here and there adds up. 

Tomorrow is the long distance event. I'm hoping that these two days were warm ups to tune my brain into focus.