Well, my race was going really well. I was ahead of a few people I am usually behind and was feeling good. My strategy was to take it easy on the uphills and go as fast as I could on the down-hills. It was working pretty well. There was risk of turning an ankle so I was really concentrating on where I stepped. Apparently this was my downfall as somewhere a rather large group of us missed a turn. There were people strung out in-front and behind me as far as I could see, but at about 1hr 5 minutes I realized that we were still pretty far from being back to the finish and I didn't see any trail markings anymore. I continued to follow the group as I new we were heading in a direction that would get us back eventually. Turns out our wrong turn ended up adding about 2 miles to the race for at least 12 of us. Based on the 5-minute gap between finishers in the official race results, if I had been watching where I was going I would have ended up in the 1:18 to 1:23 area somewhere around 30-35 out of about 145 (not sure how many of us "extra-long course" people had times posted). Either way it was good fun and I passed more people in the last 2 miles than I did the previous 9.

Watch where I'm going and not get lost.

None


Lack of training and orienteering skills.


Fun race in a beautiful location. I'll be back next year. At least I should be able to improve my time.