orienteering race (Aust long champs) 1:37:35 [4] 8.5 km (11:29 / km)
shoes: new Olways
Northern Warbys. This course took me more time and effort than a half marathon would. It was a good course - I just haven't had to concentrate so intensely for this long, for some years.
1st control okay but tentative, I went wide to 2 but would have been faster to go all the way out to the track like Sus did, because Mace caught me 2 min at 2. I was with her into 3 and 4, then left 4 too high, saw a flash of yellow up the hill which was Shannon and got confused, by the time I came down to the control at 5 I'd lost both of them. Left 5 too far left not thinking straight but saved myself on a random clearing and was very cautious into 6. 7 & 8 were okay, 9 should have been too but where I crossed the creek below the control I saw a cliff and couldn't identify it on my map so thought I was too far downstream, when in fact the cliff was the lower black dot of what I had read as 3 boulders in a row. Lost 2 min here maybe? (Actually, looking at the splits, it's closer to 4.)
10 okay, 11 was the long leg and I decided to go right but I hadn't fully made up my mind until I reached the bottom of the hill, saw Anna - I had been wondering how long it would take her to catch me 10 min - and I belted off down the creek with her in hot pursuit. Once we started going uphill, I didn't see her for dust :) 11 to 12 was a bit disappointing, such a steep uphill climb I had to walk, and where I crossed the track on the ridge I was further north than I thought so started looking about 200m further north than I should have for the radio control. Vanessa punched it just before me and I didn't really have a plan when I left it except to go the direction she'd gone...remembered to navigate soon after, but then I was standing on top of the rock with 13 below it and so sure I was in the right spot but couldn't see the control until someone punched it!
Very glad to finish, still wondering how Rachel took 10 min out of me - this terrain must suit her - but the best I could have done would have been 90 with clean controls and optimal route choices. I am just not fast enough in this stuff, and tentative on the downhills, though my ankles are stronger than they were.
(oops, this has become a bit of an essay - but now I don't have to bother writing any notes on the map!)