I had a couple beers over the weekend and signed up for an 8K XC race as a drunk dare. Problem is, I haven't trained seriously in years, nor have I ever run an XC race (I was mainly a 400/800 guy who ran the 1500 on rare occasions). So I'm likely to be DFL by a good amount.
My question is, how hard is it to not get lost on a typical XC course if you have nobody in front to follow? I'm terrible when it comes to directions/orientation if there are no roads involved (i.e., wilderness hikes), but then again, an XC course isn't going to be as remote as some random trail in Alaska. I did look at the course map, and it seems pretty confusing.
Any advice? The race is ~150 miles away, so running the course a few days beforehand isn't a realistic option.