Orienteering race (Scottish 6 Days) 58:41 [4] **** 5.9 km (9:57 / km) +220m 8:23 / km
ahr:164 max:178 spiked:13/15c slept:7.0 shoes: Standard White O-Shoes
Day 6 at Loch Ordie (despite the name, the loch does not appear anywhere on the map.) This was almost entirely an open moorland area, with a quite a lot of marshes, and heather, including plenty of knee-high stuff. The last section was steeply down through bracken and across an open field.
I had a very smooth run, with only two small mistakes on the approaches to controls, and a few poor bearings at the beginning of legs, which were corrected organically during the leg. Unfortunately I repeatedly twisted my ankle on the steep descent, and plunged one foot into a hidden stream at one point, with the result that I lost around a minute, and two places (allowing Peter M to beat me for the first time during the main competition) right at the end of the course.
It was slow going through the heather, even the burnt sections proving to be a little tricky, althought going along the edges of the marshes was the fastest way along. But, with my smooth run I was confident of a good placing. Indeed, although I was a very early starter, it was still good to hear I was in first place as I went through the finish - out of just five. Inevitably, as the good people ran their course, and the area tracked up, I slipped down the leaderboard, ending up 20th out of 70, surprisingly my second worst result - I had felt this was my best run since Day 4. Funny how these things work.
I had to stop four times to tie laces, each time wasting at least 30 seconds, although typically these pauses also gave me some energy to get some speed up. Even allowing for this, my HRavg and HRmax are impressively low. Maybe I should have just run harder, or am getting into some great fitness now. I'll see on Monday, as I'm planning a 95 mile bike ride.