orienteering race (Kuitpo score) 1:12:50 [4]
shoes: Inov8 X-Talon
Score event with controls worth 10, 20 or 30 points and which could be ridden or run to within a 70 min time limit, but then there was Lee Merchant's handicap system, comprehensible only to himself (a bit like Simon&Lachlan's formula for working out the champion club at the relays) which took into account age, gender and mode of transport. I felt a bit smug as I ticked the 36-50 box on the entry form...
Was aware that when we do a terrain run from Kuitpo it takes us 70 min to get around the east side of the OOB paddock and we don't always get into the big hills across Blackfellows Creek Rd. So I headed south around the paddock and when I had been running for 22 min Bridget came past in the opposite direction saying "I've only got 15 to get back!). Decided not to go east of the road because I was on 32 min when I hit it, turned NW towards home and then got ambitious that maybe I could make it up to the 4 controls at the very north end in the flatter stuff if I ran hard. Could probably have managed it if I had chosen to ignore a 10-pointer (311) which was in my original plan. As it was, I was nearly 3 minutes late, and it was pouring rain for those last 3 minutes. After the handicap factor of 3.5 had been applied and my 20 points/minute late penalty subsequently taken off (I had expected it to be only 10 points/min, but I had also expected it to be taken off first...), I was beaten on score by Paul Hoopmann.
Anyway, it was great fun, I mostly managed to ignore most of the things which were on my mind, most of them orienteering-related (still couldn't ignore the unknown whereabouts of B class certificates for tomorrow, but that's solved now) and I ran a lot harder than I would have if there wasn't a time limit.