Rogaining race (World Rogaining Champs) 11:17:00 [2] 40.0 km (16:56 / km)
Second half of the World Rogaining Champs. Despite being tired, the first 3 hours of night were quite fast as our route took us along some flattish valley floors, so we made quite good shuffly-running progress. However, from around 3am to 7am we were zig-zagging through steep rocky country with quite a bit of low spinifex. The difference in pace due to being forcibly pegged back to a walk on some of these legs was quite surprising - in hindsight we may have picked a better route to avoid some of this. Popped another couple of caffeine tablets to keep awake and eventually made it to dawn. At this point finishing our planned route looked a touch optimistic, but we cracked on and finally hit the next drinks point at 7am.
Food, sunshine and a good chat with some friendly volunteers at that drinks point perked us up no end and, almost out of nowhere, we were back to actually running. Also, because the terrain was flattish again, we were covering distance much much more quickly and it dawned (pun intended) on us that we were actually going to have time to add some extra controls in - one was obvious but there were now limited options to find other extensions. Oh well, cracked on anyway. Got into a bit of a head-to-head with some South African adventure racers who had a tow-rope but were moving quite well. At our last control we still had an hour left but were quite achy and the only way to add in more points would be to climb up a ~50m vertical cliff - not wise. So off to the finish happy that we'd done more than our plan, kept moving well the whole way, and no real stuff-ups to speak of.
While eating at the hash house we found out that Robbie and Kathryn had beaten us, but it wasn't until the presentation itself that we found out we'd come 2nd, which was a very nice surprise to say the least. Then passed out into a jet-laggy style sleep for a bit. Also slept very well that night.
So a great all round experience. It was amazing country (just like the Australia you imagine if all you know is Crocodile Dundee), a very cool map and a superbly organised competition so I'd like to think we'd have enjoyed it however we'd got on. But a well-executed plan and strong progress meant a nice result as an additional reward. Very pleased that after a sleep, food and hydration I only had a little residual stiffness (and several splinters) to show for it.
No GPS, but evidence suggests we covered around 82km with 5000m climb.