Sundays are for cycling, normally, but today my 16 year old son who's pretty good at orienteering, talked me into joining a local race.
I do enjoy a new sport and the learning curve, as long as it does not entail any heights. As I've been running a few times a week lately I went for it. To be honest, being a true gadget geek, I also enjoy getting all the cool equipment when picking up a new sport!
I noticed that some were quite well equipped with water in backpacks, gaiters on the legs and other paraphernalia I now have to procure. The gaiters looked funny, padded and made by Silva the Swedish compass maker, seemed a bit over the top to be honest.
Borrowed a compass, got some technical terms like falaise and coude sentier translated and was all set.
At the five second countdown I was given a map and off I went, map in hand, scratching head. First miss came quickly as I had no feel for the distances, but almost at post #2 I understood I was off, already.
After that things picked up, the running felt good and I was able to plot my strategy with map and compass in hand. Started to find the posts faster and faster. Mostly by following paths, then cutting a few meters into the dense woods.
It was not until post 8, where I did a serious shortcut down a hill, I got the idea for the gaiters. Ouch, ouch and ouch, but what can you do? Just plough on and check damage later!
And damaged they were, my poor legs I mean. On closer inspection my legs looked worse than I've ever seen them. Did not hurt much though, just amazingly itchy! Going to be a fun night...
So now I'm buying gaiters, compass and getting myself a license. More orienteering next Sunday!
BTW, did not do too bad either 1:10 while best time was 55 minutes and I did beat my 16 year old :)
You know you're getting old when your son beats you at sport - enjoy it while you can lol
Posted by: www.results-videos-news.com | December 30, 2007 at 01:45