Orienteering race (Long O) 1:59:00 [4] 14.9 km (7:59 / km) +485m 6:52 / km
Long O at waterhole gully. Same location as last year, but starting from a different (hillier) part of the map. After recent lack of training and dodgy foot I entered the medium instead of the long, and it was a really good decision. The last 20mins or so was tough and I was pretty done by the finish - very happy to not have another loop.
The course started with a short scatter (about 20mins) to split the field up. This was pretty much redundant as there were barely any runners, but may have been useful under different circumstances. The course then headed off onto long loops - we did 2, short did 1 and long did 3.
Riley was the only potential competition on the medium, and he passed me at the first control on the first loop. He was running well and pulled away over the first loop and out of sight by the time we got back to the pivot.
The first loop had been quite friendly, with really nice running and no serious climbs.
I got to the pivot after an hour (scatter + loop 1), but knew that I was going to struggle to finish in less than 2hrs, which was the goal. had a gel at the pivot.
The second loop was in much steeper country, with some proper route choices, and started by losing a lot of height. On the long leg to 8 I went left and picked the gentler climb that I could run, but then didn't drop enough into the control and did an extra lap of the slope - this was the only real mistake for the course. Running down to 9 Riley passed me again, looking much less spritely than before. I passed him again up the hill into the control, and it was clear he was now having a bad day.
The last few controls involved some long steady climbs to regain the height we'd lost at the start of the loop. I realised towards the end that I had a chance of getting in under 2hrs, so emptied the tank on the run up the hill to the finish.
Pretty stuffed at the finish, foot unhappy (but no more than other runs, and has settled ok), and left glute/hammy unhappy (but stayed the same the entire run). Nice to have a good long run in awesomely runnable country.