Click here for my NEOC Spring Rock MA Day, M21 map.

Click here for my NEOC Spring Rock CT Day, loop 1, M21 map.

Click here for my NEOC Spring Rock CT Day, loop 2, M21 map.

First day was at Wells State Park, Sturbridge MA, second day at Mashamoquet Brook State Park, Pomfret CT (2 loops). Fun terrain and the course setting. Day 1 map was a bit dubious in places, but they went out of their way to make it not matter. The laurel mapping on day 2 was totally bogus on the way from 2 to 3, or at least it seemed so to me. The good news was that I was thinking to myself: "they call that laurel". Certainly not Hickory Run or Rockhouse laurel, and I was quite content to go thru it on a couple of occasions when the alternatives looked slower due to rock and steepness.

My only real complaint was #3 on day 1, in a long formline saddle on a ridge. Unfortunately, it looked like it was on the side of the hill, as they did not use slope tags where they should have for the odd inside-out topography, for lack of a better word. I of course went a line or so down the side of the hill, and could not believe when I hit the control up on the ridge when I was looking to relocate. Still lost a couple of minutes. Really feel it was unfair without the slope tags. That said, I totally otherwise really enjoyed the terrain and the courses. The fact that the middle was too long, and there may have been too many controls both days didn't phase me. Hey, the longer the better.

As for my orienteering, pretty mediocre at best. Besides #3, day 1, had a bad time with #10 day 1, and #5, day 2. On both occasions got within a few meters of the bag, but did not see it, and hacked around quite a bit. Lack of confidence, I suppose. But the real problem is that I feel I still have some sort of low-grade illness or lack of good nutrition. Still don't have that snap in my legs I had at the beginning of the season, and have chills from time to time, like a really low-grade flu. Probably nothing but an excuse, but even my training times have been running abnormally high during the past week, so not sure what it is. I felt a little stronger on the second half of day 2, but my time still sucked. Other problems were lack of really sharp focus and being able to hold a bearing on a couple of the early legs. Good thing I wrote that orienteering seemed to be easy last week ... good thing it isn't ...