Run race ((orienteering)) 2:01:21 [4] **** 11.8 km (10:17 / km) +570m 8:17 / km
spiked:16/20c
This would have been a decent race for me if it had started at the second control. Unfortunately, races don't start at the second control, and a debacle there meant that the rest of the day was about salvaging what I could.
2 was an oh-my-god-there-must-be-an-easier-way-of-doing-this-no-there-isn't-so-just-go-straight leg. I seemed to find a route which got stuck a lot in really nasty green (as opposed to moderately nasty green - you can push through dense cypress pine when it's standing but not when it's fallen over and leaning on a 45-degree angle). That wasn't the problem though - the problem was that I came in a bit low, convinced myself I was one gully too early and spent probably four minutes looking fruitlessly in the next gully, and another four getting myself back to where I was supposed to have been.
Settled into an OK run after that, hitting 3 and 4 well although a little slowly (and going through Morten and Aaron in the process), missing 5 a bit and getting onto the back of Andy, whom I suspected had caught me a fair bit (10 minutes, as it turned out). 6 was a very long leg almost across the map, but anyone who remembered Tash and the 1997 Blodslitet (and plenty who didn't) knew that the southern track was the only realistic option. Andy ran away from me a bit on the track, and the knee started to feel a bit funny (the only time all weekend that it did). Shep and Kez then caught me coming into 6, but obviously weren't convinced that I knew what I was doing (with some basis given earlier events) and stopped one terrace too early, giving me the chance to get away again.
Andy was stopped at 7 in the company of an injured Jasmine, but told me to keep going. 8 and 9 were nice legs on the southwestern plateau before dropping off it for good on a long leg to 10. Shep and Kez went through me again at 8, but I must have found a better route to 10 because we were together again there before they dropped me for good. This was about 80% distance despite being only half the number of controls. After a good section I then dropped an annoying minute on 13, a short leg in the green, but managed to nail the scary downhill diagonal lots-of-small-features-in-low-visibility 16 and finished off OK, although a bit hesitant into 19.
The positives to draw from this, such as they were, were that I got through a long race without injury issues, and without tiring badly. It might be next year before those positives can be drawn on much, though, as I only have one more long-distance race left this year (the Tasmanian Championships). Without 2 I would have been in the low 110s, which wouldn't have gained me that many places (7th instead of 9th, I think) but would have been respectable. Rob Walter won in 97.
Post-event excitement was a leaking gas cylinder which caught fire in reasonably spectacular fashion. There wasn't much that could be done except get everyone clear and wait for it to burn itself out (which took about 10 or 15 minutes, with lots of whooshes but no bangs), but it was as well that the vegetation was too wet to catch alight.
President's Bouquet of the day #1: to Andy and Mace for abandoning their own races to help Jasmine (stick through the foot) out.