Orienteering race (JK Middle) 47:51 [5] 5.7 km (8:24 / km) +140m 7:29 / km
Nearly so good. Just wanted to sit down and cry in the end. Started easy running a very controlled race, visualised the dunes really well and every looked as I expected it to. Caught my 2 min man (Daniel Zwiker) at 2 who ran behind me for most of the course, I managed to block him out and keep running my own race which was going really well. Dropped 20s at 11 not quite spotting the control, stopped a little short of the control at 13 (again not spotting it despite running almost to the feature, need to trust myself). At 16 ran up the reentrant just to the right (20s). 17, 18, 19 ok.
So at 19 (80% of the course) despite a little time loss I'm in 18th just in front of Nick Barrable who finished 17th.
Then it all went wrong, after crossing the road into the distinctly smaller dunes I found it extremely difficult to visualise what they would look like especially with 5m contours. I started to lose it a bit and couldn't figure anything out, I tried to use the thickets which was a big mistake as these seemed random. I dropped over a minute at 20, Zwiker clearly found it without me seeing him and got away. Ben Stevens then caught me 2 mins, I ran ahead of him to 21 but ran way too far left and got stuck in a thicket. Got to 22 ok then somehow missed 23 and dropped another 30s, getting frustrated now (I'd dropped 10 places in 4 controls right at the end).
Hammered it off to 24 to what looked like a piss easy control only to completely miss it and spend the next 5 mins(!!!) trying to relocate, I just couldn't figure it out. F-ing terrible feeling, I could see the finish about 200m away! Dropped 22 places in the last little bit of the course, would have been a really decent result, no-one else lost time at the end they all lost time in the difficult bit...most of that course was probably the best I've ever orienteered on really technical terrain.