CIOR 17 Codename: Brutal!

Day 17

Utter hell! That is the best way to put how today went for me. The whole day was a race against the other teams.

We were orienteering again. This time was at Sutton Ski Mountain. It was a real mountain as far as I was concerned. It was supposed to be an easy first one for the day. An aerial photo of the mountain. We were in teams today and I was the navigator. That means a lot of responsibility for me to get us to where we had to go. (I used a new special compass today. That may explain some of the mistakes.)

* the markers are about 12 inched cubed red and white markers that are hung from trees.

On the first point I missed the target by 200m. After realizing where I went wrong we simply had to do an about turn and go back the 200m to get back on track. This should have taken 10 minutes max. After 1 hour of searching I abandoned hope even though I was sure we were at the right spot in the first 5 minutes of searching.

On to point 2. Again it was only 500m away and should have been easy to find. Again another 45 minutes searching for the marker. Screw this lets hit point 3. Point 3 we found exactly where it was supposed to be. Thank god I am not loosing my mind.

At the bottom of the hill we stroll up to the final check and there they are waiting for us. After explaining how frustrated I was that I couldn’t get the points. They explain to me that they had taken them down while we had gone past the first one. Fucken’ hell! I spent 1 hour and 45 minutes looking for something that wasn’t even there.

That was not the right way to gain the confidence of my team. They understood and we soldiered on.

At the base of the mountain we checked in and got two more maps and each got a bike. This was going to be fun. We went screaming into the town on our new mountain bikes with reckless abandon. A turn here, a skid there, and a huge ass hill every other turn. We arrived at the farm in the middle of nowhere. Off the bikes and into the bush. We were told that we had to eat our lunch on the run. We were behind by a lot so we skipped lunch thinking that we were almost complete and we would eat after. WRONG!

In the bush we go at 100 mph. The next mistake was my fault. I take all responsibility for it. Off by 300m again. So mad. My confidence was shattered. What was I doing? Why am I all screwed up? The next leg I took super slow and didn’t run or rush. I needed to get my head on straight and prove to the guys I know what I am going. We get there! YAHOO! I was so happy.

After finishing the map we headed back to the vans for some lunch (3pm). No time for lunch. We had another map to get finished while everyone else waited for us because they were finished to race. Off we go to the bush again. I was so pissed off. Lost, no food, and everyone waiting for us. I didn’t want to make any mistakes so we just took it slow and steady. We made it out of that hell hole in 1 hour.

No time for eating, no time for a swim, just get in the van and lets get the hell out of this shit hole.

That was my worst day by far and I hated every minute of it.