Orienteering race 43:48 [4] **** 5.7 km (7:41 / km) +200m 6:32 / km
ahr:145 max:157 shoes: VJ Falcon
FVO night race at Dumyat East, a pleasant warm evening for it and good fun as always.
Gaffled off the start and found myself on the same gaffle as Forest and Rosco, gradually got left behind but took the lead again at #7 when they both missed it. Longish gradual uphill leg to #8 saw them pass me again, could also see lights ahead which was the people on the other gaffle (who still had our nos 1-4 to do at the end). Couldn't understand how we had caught them so quickly until got to the circle and none of us could find it either!
Consensus eventually reached that the flag was missing and that we should go on, only for a joyous pack error at #9 (seemed like the wrong place when we did find it) and a similar pack overshoot at #10 (possibly because #9 was too far east). All quite funny at the time as we bungled around like a group of incompetents - organiser Fraser collected both #8 and #9 so both were there, and he was adamant that they were also in the correct place......
Less bungling after that but meant we were all a bit clustered through the control pick section, I was running with O Mapper and Hazel and could see Will and Ross disappearing at the front with Dixie chasing them. But of course at #19 I could drop down to the finish behind the first two and leave the others to go and do their remaining loop!
A good hard run most of the time with not too much standing around at #8 and #9, took the last few mins of descent down from #19 to the finish pretty easy (heart rate down to 122 by the finish).
Thanks to Fraser for a good fun race and to Fraser and Will for getting the controls without further assistance - I was delighted to head straight to chez Purves for delicious soup and cake!
Running warm up/down 15:00 [3]
shoes: VJ Falcon
Unusually for me, I was a trifle late in arriving. Although not the last! However it did mean that I had to run up a massive steep hill to catch the others up before the mass start....