Belair National Park near Adelaide. Great tough course planned by Simon, with lots of gaffled short legs early on and some mean route choice later. Didn't really go to plan for me though - went over on my ankle after about 2mins at the 2nd control! Then again at the 3rd control. Took it pretty steady to try and run it off round the rest of the short 1st loop and found myself near the front at the map change. Then it opened up a bit, and it felt like I'd run it off, so I put my foot down a bit on the first long leg. By #10 on the 2nd loop I'd opened up a 2.5min lead. Then it got really rocky, so I had to take it quite gingerly and I also made a 3min error at #13 so was caught back up by a few guys. By the time we'd left the rock I was with Josh, Bryan and Henry - all running very strongly. I sat back partly to be careful of my ankle, partly demoralised and partly just knackered. The decisive long leg was looming and I'd planned to do the round road route hoping it would be better on my ankle and hoping the others would go the other way - but when we punched #12 no-one moved! So I hit the road anyway and of course they all ended up going that way. Then my ankle got really really sore so I stopped to have a look at it - pretty puffed up. Some walkers offered me a lift back but at that stage I thought I might still hobble round and the cockies might need me, so I declined. After a km of hobbling it was only getting sorer though, so I just walked back to the finish. Ho hum.
Still, good to see Bryan and Josh running strongly and Victor could be a handful this season.
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