Thomass Caledon

Terrain: forest, fields, shallow valleys
Weather: sunny, slightly below zero, snowy

I was nervous about this race all week for a number of reasons:

• As the 5th race in the series, this would be the first one that could push my crummy Thomass Chase score out, as only the top 4 count
• I did relatively well in the previous race and I started having high hopes, but a lot of self-doubt
• This was the final event hosted by this club, so everyone was going to be there and I felt I needed to have a good showing
• Last time I was at this venue in September, I had an absolutely terrible race, and I was jittery about making stupid mistakes again in this terrain

In short, I was going into this race in a very bad headspace!

I had a good warm-up, and I took a basic gel before the start. I had told myself that with two Thomass boxes of 3 controls each, 2 of which overall I could drop, it would be better to drop the latter ones, allowing the elite guys to break trail for me in the snow. I told myself I should use the elite guys to help me make decisions.

But looking a the map, I somehow decided to drop two of the first controls and head straight to 1 ahead of everyone else.  Already this slowed me down because of the slower traffic going to A, and me needing to get back past them on the way out.  I was first to control 1, but then once some other racers started to catch up to me, I started getting cocky with my speed and went off course at 4/5.

After that, I planned to go the second box in the opposite direction of everyone else, to save countours on a climb.  Kind of stupid because the orienteering was easier the other way.  Once again I was a bit ahead, but missed my attack point and ended up running in with the elite guys, who were on their way out of the box.  Except they were running a different line, so I had actually done a round-about route to get to the same control.

Finally I got cocky again and orienteered one leg instead of following power lines. Shortly after that, I had to go back to 4/5 and was so scared of being behind, that I went too fast and lost my catching features again.  That put the final nail in this race's coffin.  By the time I got back to running, I was in the midst of very slow racers.  The remaining point-to-point controls were really easy, just a straight-up run, but I couldn't really move up too many spots, as I was exhausted from all the extra running-around I'd done.  I ended up with 12 points, which is embarrassing compared to my usual mid-30s (out of 50).

My head totally got to me in this race. Hasn't happened in a long while. Gotta get over it and be fresh for the next one. It will be in a city park I know very well, but I'll study the map to have it fresh and well-visualized in my mind.

--Distance: 7.9K
--Duration: 1:26:00

Route Link