Orienteering race (NavDash Hale) 15:59 [5] *** 3.5 km (4:34 / km)
spiked:15/20c shoes: Kswiss somethings
Tricksy sort of course set by Simmo at Hale School. Very careful on the first, looked at the bottom of the stairs, top of the stairs, wring garden bed, then back down the stairs to the other garden bed to get no. 2. 3 and 4 were OK, 5 was slow. Much harder to spot the controls this week as they were on stands, and usually hidden behind waist height walls until you were standing right next to them. 6 was easy, but I don't know if I went the fastest route, ditto 7. 8 and 9 were smooth, but somehow got disorientated going to 10 and dropped about 5 sec, 11-13 were the stretch out the legs and hammer controls, which I did, then started to run to 15, before I saw 14 on the map. 14 was clean, but had to stop and unfold the map to check the code, as I wasn't confident I was on the right mound. 15 and 16 OK, 17 slow in the circle as I didn't know what the control was hidden behind. 18 was a disaster, Bolted about half way there, but totally lost where I was and ended up at my no. 6. Stopped, totally confused, punched 6 again, figured out where I was, left in the wrong direction, then rather than changing route, deviated back the other way to come into the control as planned, dropping more time. Last couple OK, but lost time at 20 when the unit didn't beep and I had to go back a few steps and re-punch, then turned around and ran to where I remembered (wrongly) the finish being instead of down the chute.
very scrappy. No major losses, but not good enough.
Lessons learnt - have to bring description holder (on the wrist is far more useful than on the map - will actually check on hte way into controls) and... there is still that distinct speed at which I CAN run, but CAN'T navigate cleanly. I am much faster if I back off a touch and get it right.
See if I can put any of that into practice at Aquinas
run 35:00 [2] 7.0 km (5:00 / km)
shoes: Kswiss somethings
About half and hour warm-up. Needed this to get moving and give the Nurofen time to work on my lower back. Tokenish cooldown after Wally offered me a lift home to drop off my ski. Seemed a better option that running home again