orienteering race (Aust middle champs) 46:48 [3] 4.6 km (10:10 / km)
shoes: new Olways
So, apparently I ran pretty badly today. Didn't actually think I was doing that poorly out there, apart from painful ankle & hamstring, sheer fatigue from having woken up at what seemed like 4am every day for the last 10 days, and vagueness/dizziness from the anti-inflammatories I had with breakfast. But I did notice that I was stumbling around the rocks while other people were just whizzing past me.
Really had to force myself to concentrate on the map (was already thinking about work on Monday) and even then didn't always recognise the boulder I wanted even when I was standing right next to it. Overran 1 on a downhill leg - looked in the right vicinity but didn't see the control so kept going a bit further till I realised I was at 12 already, ran back up the hill. Maybe a minute here? Kellie (2 min) passed me on the way to 3 and Mace (4 min) on the way to 4, which we were all a bit hesitant going down in to. I finally managed to repass Kellie at 9, then went too high in the little gullies at 11, and what do you know, I was at 12 already! Confirmed this by looking up the hill to see 1 again, then belted down the hill to 11, having by now lost a couple of minutes and complete sight of Kellie (and Rachel had gone through me here too) and back up to 12 for which leg, strangely enough, I had equal fastest split!
Was sitting next to Paul Hoopmann on the plane on the way home, when he commented that over the whole of Easter he'd made less than 4 min of mistakes and yet he had blown more than that on this one race. I agreed that my experience had been similar.