Orienteering race (WCOC Long) 1:47:03 [5] ***** 9.0 km (11:54 / km) +468m 9:26 / km
spiked:15/21c shoes: VJ Integrator
Another tough race for the WCOC long champs. I would say that this was of similar quality technically as my run yesterday but I didn't have the strength for the rough terrain and the climb. Finished in 5th place 19min behind Patrick G!
I felt much more confident today but I knew that I would find it physically challenging and would have to try and be conservative. I got through the first 5 with only a couple of little bobbles - offline a little on #1, the flag at #2 was well hidden, and didn't read the map very well running into #5 - and caught Steven Graupner from 6min behind. I then proceeded to make one of those typical "I'm doing so well" type errors costing about 2min and losing sight of Steven. Had little bobbles again on #7 and #8 and then passed him again on the way to #9. He hung on as I led through #9, #10, and #11 but I lost him on the longer #12.
I started to lose strength climbing up into #12, and I walked significant sections of #13, losing 8min to Patrick on this one leg and only a little of that was navigation problems. I was really finding it difficult to pick my legs up to get over deadfall and I was pushing myself pretty hard just to keep moving.
I must have passed Alaric on #13 and discovered him behind me at #14. I was fairly clean through #14-17 but lost contact with the map running into #18 and lost 2min. I did the last 4 pretty nicely.
Most splits were quite comparable to Patrick, Brian (2nd) and Magnus (3rd) except for the 2 long legs crossing the 'canyon'. On these 2 legs, I lost 11min to Patrick despite no significant navigational problems!
Quite happy again with this run, technically, at least. Strength is obviously not great but that is hardly unexpected with my minimal training regime of late.
Running 20:00 [3] 4.0 km (5:00 / km)
shoes: Adidas Supernova Cushion 7
A quick jog in the morning with MrPither and warming up.