After a gorgeous Saturday, with temperatures close to 80, the Sunday didn’t look promising: rainy and cold. But, just like the last time, the rain stopped around noon, just in time for the start.

I could not leave the church until 1:30PM, which meant I was only able to start around 1:50. I was nervous I won’t be able to finish a green course, but Nadya (the course director) encouraged me to do it anyway. And I am happy I did.

This is the result. I timed myself too (I kept the splits for each control), but I refused to look at the total time. I thought I will be back in less than an hour, I was very surprised and disappointed at the finish line that I was 23 minutes over an hour (15 minutes after the 3PM closing time). I don’t exactly know why I thought I did it faster, I did try to run all the way through. The course was beautiful, it also helped that I started to know Umstead South a bit better and some controls were a deja-vu (especially control 7 on the cliff, but also the steep river bank, control 8 – I am positive we’ve had controls there before – it’s easy to find out since I have the maps for the past 2 years). (update: those were controls 40 and 53 from the Umstead 911 Score Event)

Other surprises: Green course was 5.6km, it’s usually 5.1km; for the first time I notice there was a Blue course as well (8.7km) – not that I could do it in the timeframe I had, plus it would definitely be long. Nadya estimated 10 minutes per kilometer in orienteering, I seem to be at 15.

On the way back home I noticed how gorgeous the woods are in the fall. It’s probably the best month to do orienteering, cool enough and with less vegetation, plus the foilage.

The weather didn’t look very promising for Sunday. The morning was cold (around 55F) and it drizzled. However, the rain conveniently stopped around 1PM, so my orienteering experience was actually surprisingly pleasant. I didn’t get as wet as last time (when it was in the mid 80s), probably also because I didn’t have to cross the stream (twice) knee-deep in water. I still got a bit wet because of the vegetation, but not nearly as bad as I thought, and since I was running most of the time I didn’t notice the cold anyway.

I competed on the green course (5.1km) and finished in 75:43 (definitely not the fastest time, I’ve seen at least 2 faster times, one at 60 minutes and one at 71 minutes), but I am really happy with it. I only had troubles with 2 out of the 9 controls, that’s where I knew I lost time; the rest was just me taking my time.

As usual, I really enjoyed Umstead Park. The event was in the North side of the park, which is generally a problem for me coming from the South, because I have to go around either West-bound (I-540 and US-70) or East-bound (Blue Ridge / Duraleigh / Ebeneezer Church / US-70). Blue Ridge Road is a no-no these days with the State Fair blocking all the traffic, so I used I-40 / Wade Avenue / Edwards Mill / Duraleigh / … and that wasn’t bad at all. It’s surprising that the Reedy Creek / South entrance and the North entrance in the park do not communicate so you can get by car through the park – for those who don’t know why, the reason is historical and dates from the Segregation period. I guess not being able to drive across the Park is a good thing after all, I wouldn’t want cars speeeding through.