rogaining race (Upside Down Spring 12hr) 6:50:00 [3] 26.0 km (15:46 / km)
shoes: Asics Gel 2140
We didn't feel as though we were moving heaps fast in the night - my ankle really didn't like the rough descents and I was very tentative, but the ascents weren't too bad - at least in the dark you can't see that the hillside is something you'd consider a 'cliff" in daylight. All the same, I'm going to do some hill intervals before NZ! The emphasis for this event had always been about practising night navigation, and I'd never wanted to push really hard, so it was nice to take the time to chat to other teams we saw in the night and hear how they were doing.
Around 3.30am we saw Mike/Hugh Round's team at a control (the one with the port bottle, which was well and truly empty by the time we were there) and they expressed surprise that we were still heading north as they were on their way back to the hash house, having gone north first. I said to Z "I don't think we're going to make it as far as we'd hoped, we might have to reconsider the remaining 3 1/2 hours". So we got 2 more controls then it was 4:30am at the NW water drop about 2/3 of the way up the map and we decided to follow the stone wall east across the map, with only 50 + 30pts on the way, so that we could at least get to the 80 on the roads in the very NE corner.
So with 90 min and 11km to go we finally hit roads, or at least runnable terrain, and I put my accelerator foot down, then the other one followed it, and Zara was close behind, and in the end we made it with 10 min to spare, on 1600 points (total available 2560 so that wasn't even 60%). We were beaten into 4th by Olivier and Annika being on the same score but having finished 11 min ahead of us. The Rounds were 2nd, 10pts ahead (but apparently having forgotten to punch a 70 pointer) and Andrew McComb and teammate, clearly in training for next month's WRC, won on 1760, having gone north and been efficient with the gorge. Oh, and we won't talk about Steve & Dave's 1330 for the 6 hour - that's in another league entirely!
We were definitely outclassed but it was a good training exercise. Happy with night navigation, expecting my ankle to be stronger in a month, and intending to spend a significant portion of the WRC planning time weighing up alternate routes and points per km.
Sunce I was home by midday I saw no reason not to spend a beautiful spring afternoon napping rather than attending to the garden, being just a little wrecked! The plan for Monday night, if anyone who ran Black Hill today doesn't feel like running, is to meet at Unley Pool 6pm and go for a swim - the tickets are on me!