Run race ((orienteering)) 1:44:29 [4] *** 13.0 km (8:02 / km) +520m 6:42 / km
spiked:21/23c
Eureka Challenge at Glenluce. Another solid long-distance race to add to Kangaroo Crossing, and gradually build my confidence in my current capacity to handle these. Bruce's late run of 91 put the time in a bit of perspective; a gap of under 8 minutes to the leaders would have been the closest I've been in this company for a couple of years. Didn't miss much - just 30 seconds or so at 6 and a very small wobble on 9 - and seemed to get the major route choices right. Still not fast, and lacking fluency in the terrain (more in the first half than the second), probably through a lack of practice, but reasonably strong.
After the epic first leg in Spain last night it was an epic first leg today - 3.3km all the way across the map. I was a little rattled at the start after taking longer than I would have liked to get the map into a bag (something done in running time) and took an instant decision, which turned out to be a decent one. Brodie caught me 2 minutes about three-quarters of the way there and I thought he'd go straight through me and I'd never see him again, but in fact we were dicing for the remainder of the course - he was struggling a bit with his calves and also made some mistakes, and would intermittently blow me away but then I'd see him again a couple of controls later.
After a section in mining detail, such as there is at Glenluce, 9-10 was a nice open leg, most of it on big gently sloping spurs, then there was another control-picking section, including the day's most annoying leg, 13-14 with more than its share of unmapped green (the map's 12 years old). That set things up for the final section of the course, with a few nasty climbs (20-21 and the last climb into the last control especially). I was gaining confidence on the hills by then and could see that Brodie was finding them tough, and while I didn't think I had any chance of getting the two minutes back, I was hopeful that I could beat him across the line, which I did.
Until Bruce's very late run I thought a Eureka Challenge tradition might have been restored: I came 6th in the first five Eureka Challenges between 1994 and 1998 (albeit in deeper fields than this - it was a National League in all but the first of those years) and thought I'd got there again this year. The times were a bit slower than I thought but then I think the area's a bit greener than it was; back in the second half of the 90s I used to regard 6.2-6.4 minutes/km as being par on moderately steep central Victorian gully-spur, but no-one broke 7s here.
Spotted on the way up (unsurprisingly, in Coburg): a billboard advertising halal superannuation. I assume they don't invest in breweries or piggeries.