Orienteering race 11:12 [5] **** 1.45 km (7:43 / km)
32c shoes: new grey Inov8s
Sheffield Ultrasprint, 4 parallel heats so 4 starters per minute. Top 4 in each heat to A final. £150 to the winner and £40 to first over 40.
Started into labyrinth made with metal barriers and mapped at 1:1,000, middle section in park at 1:2,500, then back into labyrinth again at the end.
Was very nervous about making a right fool of myself in the labyrinth but did it okay and got out of that section ahead of Bill Edwards and Tim Tett who started on the same minute as me. Then made a right mess of the park section, okay in the labyrinth at the end but well behind Bill and Tim by then.
And then it turned out in any case that I had missed #15 completely while I was blundering around in the park. Would have been 5th in my heat if not disqualified so wouldn't have made the A final anyway. Found the way the control numbers and codes were overprinted (slight white border around them) very difficult to read for some reason but that is no excuse, I wasn't struggling to see the circles!
Orienteering race 18:28 [5] **** 2.45 km (7:32 / km)
46c shoes: new grey Inov8s
B final, a bit further than the qualifier and 46 controls this time including 4 different sets of butterfly loops!
Not really up for it or into it at the start, lost time in the labyrinth bit and in the transition to the park. Okay after than except near the end when I got control number and code mixed up back in the labyrinth, supposed to be looking for control number 38 which was code 51, I stood at the correct control for a while wondering where code 38 was. Stupid although I guess not ideal in a race with 46 controls for lots of the control codes to be in the 30s and 40s too, this caught out a few people for mispunches including Bill Edwards, leaving the veteran £40 prize clear for a surprised Ricky Baxter!
Running warm up/down 15:00 [2]
shoes: new grey Inov8s
Two sets of warmup, wearing my new Inov8s for the first time, they seemed fine which was good.
Didn't take any ibubrofen and found my ankle took a bit of warming up before the first race but was okay, very stiff afterwards though which was less good. Didn't warm up enough to get it moving properly again before the second race started. Not particularly sore, just not very mobile (the other one doesn't feel much better), need to do some flexibility exercises on them both.