Orienteering (JK Long - Llangynidr) 1:45:30 [3] *** 17.0 km (6:12 / km) +390m 5:34 / km
spiked:20/31c
Set off medium-fast out the start to try and show Lewis and Willy that they would need to make an effort to catch me! Steady in from there. Two, just looking out for the rocks and reading it in. #3, saw and followed my 3 minute man and executed perfectly the parallel mistake onto the wrong hill, even after stopping for a decent amount of time to check. He spotted first so dived over the hill and punched. Guessed Lewis was around so got on with it but played it very safe to four going high via the tree and dropping in from above reading everything in which was quite slow.
Was slow to #5 just remembering it was a 100 minute race. Didn't really 'get on with it' as much as I should have through the next lot and agreed something was funny on the way to 7!
Saw 10 was a killer leg so went slow but still lost contact, relocated but then rushed off to the wrong control which took me a while to put right. Wavy to 11. Plopped over the hill nicely to #12. Took a silly high route out of 12 to the top of the hill and massively over-estimated the steepness of the valley so wasted a bit of time. Up the nice re-entrant fine but should have trusted the compass more to get out of it and between the hillocks.
14 struggled in the middle part and read things slowly in. Started to feel tired on the gradual incline to 15 with no food. Got through the quarry with a few hesitations. Slow again to 22 making sure I got there okay, didn't believe it was our control though being so visible! Down to the road crossing following some M10/20s had three drinks but missed the punch. Out of breath up to 26 and checked a couple of other pits first. Tried to push on with lots of other people towards the finish and finally got to follow my 6 minute man into 28. Kept going and stopped him mis-punching at the second last!
~105 minutes so ~13 down on Hector and 10 on James Tullie. Say 5 mins of big mistakes; 5 mins of bad routechoice, 'not getting on with it' and food; leaves another 5 for running which isn't too bad for that long. Never saw Willy!
An enjoyable JK weekend with races and the hut. Never felt like I got the speed I've had around in training but maybe I lost that with going home beforehand. Sprint just wasn't great, never really felt it. The middle was okay after a slow start. The long was fun but never superfast and a similar, decent but not stellar, result to last year.