Whidbey Island Nerds route

Here is the link to our route:
http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/?r=3023257
Stats: 25.1 miles, 6:42, 1560 pts.

All I can say is that we were definitely suckered into a major error in our overall course design. We immediately decided to get the Carkeek Park checkpoints because there were so many points to get in a short distance and I knew the trails pretty well from I used to live nearby and go running there a lot. However, going to Carkeek caused us to not have time to get the downtown Seattle checkpoints which it turns were worth a lot more points. The best route would have been skip Carkeek Park and go straight downtown and back. This was the route taken by the top team in our category (7-hr mixed) and the main reason why they beat us soundly. On top of this blunder, we also planned a route that was too short and we finished 18 min. early even though we were being real casual at the end. I came up with an optimum route that would have yielded 1940 pts (380 pts more than we actually scored) with only about 1.5 more miles of travel - totally doable at the speed we were going. That said, we had no real navigation issues on the course but like most teams, we had trouble with the wording of several questions.

Bill Cusworth