9 AM
Running warm up/down 11:11 [2] 2.0 km (5:35 / km) +7m 5:30 / km
shoes: Inov-8 Oroc 280
Just looping around the assembly area until I felt as ready as I was going to get to tackle the hills.
Orienteering race 37:45 [5] 5.8 km (6:30 / km) +239m 5:24 / km
shoes: Inov-8 Oroc 280
H3 at Evedon Ridge, 5.2km straight line.
Happy with my start hitting the first cleanly. Not quite sure if I passed him before or after 1 but Nick Dale overtook me up the hill to 2 and punched just ahead of me but I was quicker leaving and was ahead going out towards 3. I didn't really want to lead Nick all the way around and 3 looked pretty tricky so I tried to make sure I was clean in and out to try to get a gap which I mostly succeeded at. He said he could still see me until 6 but I got enough of a gap to not be aware of him from 3. Went through Andrew Martin at 5 I think and got to 7 just behind Oliver. I went fairly wide crossing the spur to 8 but not quite as wide as I thought so I overshot slightly coming back but I suspected I might be so was quick enough recovering to still get it well ahead of Oliver.
Happy with 9 but lost about a minute at 10 which seemed to be a boulder or two North of where it should have been. Oliver caught up here but I found it first and he didn't stay with me leaving. 11 was good, 12 was a slog. I probably could have contoured a bit more here or forced myself to run all of the hill and saved a few seconds (5 maybe). Made sure I contoured out of 12 was happy with my route over the dam wall into 13. Ran right past a control on a similar boulder about 70m before mine and wondered if they had got it wrong so tried to check the code but could only read the first letter which was the same. Only had to go a couple more steps to see there was a control in the right spot as well but I really don't understand why they didn't just use one of them. Easy run down to the last which I had seen on the way past then forced myself to keep running up to the finish pulling all sorts of faces for the camera man.
Found out later that fenry had beaten me by 4 seconds. Probably a good thing as it would have been a bit of a let down to achieve my goal for the season in the first race. Not too many more chances though with fenry heading overseas in June.
Running warm up/down 7:53 [2] 1.17 km (6:45 / km) +22m 6:10 / km
shoes: Inov-8 Oroc 280
Warm down jog out past the start. I thought it was pretty flat heading out but it certainly didn't feel like it coming back.