US Champs in Wisconsin Meet Report by John Barrett

I went on a trip to Wisconsin to go orienteering. I have done orienteering before, but I had never been to an A-meet. I was both nervous and excited. For the practice course, I did half of it with Mom and Jessica (my sister), and half of it by myself. It was kind of easy.

On Saturday, I ran a white course with Jessica as my shadow. She didn’t help me at all—this was the first time I ever did a whole course all by myself. I messed up one time when I got to # 8 but forgot to check the numbers on the clue sheet, so I thought it was the wrong control. I ran back and forth three times between #7 and #8, before I realized that the control numbers didn’t go in order. After that I ran so fast, but I still ended up in 3rd place, with a time of 32:33. The other two boys in M-10 were not part of USOF and couldn’t get a medal, so I got 1st place.

On Sunday, I was excited about going orienteering again. The course was the same length (1.9 km), but it had more hills than the day before. I just made one little mistake that day when I ran past #9, because it was in a depression. I got to the intersection at the bottom of the hill and realized I ran too far. I had to run back up the hill to look for it. I ran a lot faster the second day with a time of 25:31, only 5 seconds slower than the first place winner.

I learned that you have to always check the control numbers on your clue sheet. I am really looking forward to going to the next A-meet, which is going to be in St. Louis. I am also going to start orienteering by myself on the white courses.