Run ((orienteering)) 1:36:58 [3] *** 12.8 km (7:35 / km) +590m 6:09 / km
spiked:30/30c
Decided to take on the Maxi 3-hour score event at Sailors Creek with the intention of treating it as a training run and staying out for around 2 hours. Bruce had the same idea and set out in the same sequence. It quickly became apparent that we were going to get all the controls well inside 3, or even 2, hours, even at less than full speed - we already had 6 on the board inside the first 10 minutes.
Bruce pulled away a bit on the second quarter of the course, mostly because he was a bit more aggressive than I was on the numerous erosion gully crossings, but I caught up again after a slightly suspect control and then a split on route choice across the green main creek (the only time all day we weren't in sight of each other). The next control was overrun by wasps - as I'd been warned on approach. I stopped to see if a safe approach could be made; Bruce went straight in, punched, got stung and fled the scene with the wasps in hot pursuit. He also dropped his map and control card in the process and wasn't about to go back in to retrieve it. We ran together from there and predictably finished way inside the distance.
I was pretty happy with this one; certainly stronger than most recent days and running hills decently well. The navigation was fairly straightforward (especially as I had Bruce to show me into so many controls in the first two-thirds) but still pleased to do nothing silly. 97 minutes was a nice length for this stage of training.
It may seem like poor course-setting to set a 3-hour score event where people get them all in just over half the time (and we'd probably have broken 90 if we'd been going flat out), but I don't think much more could have been done given the limits of the size of the map.
Thought our kilometre rate might have been a bit faster given the open nature of most of the forest (and the modest climb by Sailors Creek standards), but the gully crossings definitely add up.