Run race ((orienteering)) 53:59 [4] *** 7.1 km (7:36 / km) +130m 6:58 / km
spiked:8/12c
First day of O-ringen. Doing this without any prior preparation in Swedish terrain at an event where my past performances have ranged from poor to horrendous, and was feeling my way a bit on the first couple of legs, not getting great lines in the terrain and losing 45 seconds in the circle at 2. Settled after that although not quite confident hitting the controls on the complex short legs at 4 and 5, and was just starting to feel as if I was getting into it properly when I fell heavily coming downhill out of 6, creating a photogenic (or possibly anti-photogenic) scrape on my face, but more significantly giving my left knee a substantial whack, enough to trouble me on the rest of the run. Struggled a bit to get into a running rhythm in the next kilometre and missed 30 seconds at 8, better on the vague and fast final section.
This was a moderate performance - probably 2 minutes dropped all up, perhaps slowed a bit by the knee later, and the late starters probably had the worst of the conditions too - but I was still pretty shocked how far down I was. I was expecting a winning time perhaps in the 42-44 range, but in fact Per Ek did 39 and I was barely above halfway.
And, as I expected, the knee stiffened badly within minutes after the run ended. Past experience suggests that it's going to be a problem for two or three days. Of course I don't have two or three days; I'm reasonably confident there's nothing structurally wrong, so it will be a question of whether I can tolerate the pain tomorrow and post some sort of a time, then have 48 hours to get it right given Tuesday's rest day. I certainly hope so; hanging around the last few days of an O-ringen sidelined by an injury (something I have past experience of, in 2000) isn't a lot of fun.