Yukon orienteers put in strong performances last weekend.

But despite numerous medals, not all were pleased.

Yukon Orienteering Association (YOA) athletes combined to win 38 medals at the Canadian Orienteering Championships (COC) held in and around Whitehorse over the weekend.

The nationals began Friday with the sprint distance held on a map set at Mount Lorne South East. On Saturday, orienteers took to a map on the Carcross Desert for the long distance. The middle distance was held on a brand-new map at Lewes Lake on Sunday.

Stand-out Yukoners included Pia Blake and Caelan McLean, who each won three gold in their three races at Canadians and three gold each at the Western Canadian Orienteering Championships held in Whitehorse the previous weekend.

But for Blake, gold is not the measure of success she was looking for.

"Personally I didn't have very good races. Races shouldn't really be about how you end up, how you come in, what you're placing is – they should be about how you feel personally,” said Blake, who competed in the women's 15-16 age group.

Blake won the sprint in 19 minutes, 55 seconds and the long distance in 58:37.

In the middle distance, she was beat out by Helene Omdal of the Foothill Wanderers Orienteering Club out of Calgary, who is Norwegian and therefore ineligible to win a medal.

"My coach says, ‘When you cross the finish line, you should know if you've had a good race or a bad race,' and I felt that the last three I haven't had very good races,” said Blake.

The 15-year-old cited a 90-degree error on one of the controls to end up on the wrong side of a depression, messing up a leg in one of her races, as an example.

The long-distance event held at the Carcross Desert was also wrought with challenges, she added.

"I've never run terrain like the Carcross Desert. I don't even think I ran on it when the Westerns were here last time, seven years ago. It was very challenging physically, I found. Technically it wasn't quite as bad as I had expected, but physically, I had a hard time, and I think that's partly what made it a bad race for me.”

But, she pointed out, she orienteers for such challenges.

"That's what makes it fun.”

McLean took a similar position.

The 13-year-old won the long distance in 21:49, the middle distance and 12:46 and the sprint in 8:05.

McLean, who competed in the male 13-14 age group, said the COC were more about pushing himself than competing against others.

"There wasn't as much competition as I thought in this category,” said McLean, who started reading orienteering maps at six-years-old.

"My course wasn't that hard because it was mostly on trails, but it is pretty hard terrain.”

Yukoners Kendra Murray and Lee Hawkings, who both represented Canada at the Junior World Orienteering Championships last month, also nabbed six medals between the Westerns and Canadians.

Murray won gold in both the long (55:10) and sprint (15:17), but settled for silver in the middle distance with a time of 29:06.

Hawkings, meanwhile, won gold in the long with a time of 1:06:21, seven seconds ahead of fellow junior national team member Graeme Rennie.

Hawkings then took second behind Rennie in the middle distance with a time of 35:03, and third in the sprint in 16:48.

While Hawkings made the podium in each of his races, he echoed the sentiment expressed by Blake.

No matter where you finish, each race can carry with it its own frustrations.

"You know if you run without mistakes how much better you can do. But you never have a perfect race. There's always something wrong with it. That's why it's so appealing to a lot of people. A lot of sports you're not going to master, but orienteering you're always going to search for that perfect race. You could win and still be disappointed with yourself because you know you messed it up,” Hawkings said.

Murray agreed.

Like Hawkings and Rennie, Murray exchanged leads with fellow junior national team member Emily Ross.

Murray said the middle distance was especially back-and-fourth between the two.

"Emily started coming up behind me and we came to the first control at the same time, so I lost two minutes,” Murray said. "And then we ended up running the rest of the course together. I'd never really run with someone; we were going back and fourth, both knowing where we were, but each running a little bit faster on each leg.

We ended up splitting up for one leg, so we came together right at the control at the same time. That was really cool. I've never really done that running with someone before.”