Trail-O team thinking hard

Today was the first day of competition for the Trail-O Team. 20 controls and four timed controls made for a challenging exercise. I had our best result with a score of 18 out of 24 correct, placing me 30th out of 52 in the open class. I had a really hard time on some of the early controls and spent a ton of time there. Then I was having to really push it through the rest of the course. I sprinted into the finish with 9 seconds left! I also ended up missing the three controls I spent the most time on, so it didn't pay off.

Sharon had a score of 16 for 37th place. She was excited about her success on the timed controls, which are often a weak spot for her. Today she got all four correct. Disappointed, however, with a lost point due to a mispunch. She accidentally punched control 16 on the line for control 15, making two punches on that line. Unfortunately, in Trail-O this is a mistake you cannot recover from. Even though she had solved #15 correctly, it didn't count.

President Peter Goodwin made his WTOC debut with a score of 15 and a placing of 44th. The dreaded Z tripped him up today, with many of his misses being cases where he chose Z and one of the flags was actually the correct answer.

But it's not over yet. This is a two-day combined competition. Tomorrow we tackle more map problems to see if we can best our rivals. Stay tuned for the final results.

Peter considers a model control