orienteering race (Oceania middle champs) 55:33 [4] 4.3 km (12:55 / km)
shoes: Inov8 X-Talon
Waikawa Beach. We spent the morning spectating the World Cup race where the first glimpse we had of the runners was as they appeared high on the dunes on the ocean side of the river, then ran along the river beach and disappeared up into the dunes again in varying degrees of confusion, to reappear over the footbridge and into the last control. Some solid Aussie results but I am also interested in the pointy end of the women's field so this held my attention until the end. After the presentations were over and the finish infrastructure moved, it became clear that the public races were to start and finish across the river and we would be thrown straight into the dunes.
Sure enough, this was the case, and I took a while to properly read and understand which were the more outstanding hills - the use of an index contour to denote these did not aid in my interpretation thereof - and I lost a couple of minutes on the first control. Was mostly okay, if hesitant, until the leg to 11 back out towards the ocean, where I had in fact run too far towards the ocean and was deeper into big dunes than I realised, about 200m SW of the control and I kept thinking that the banana shaped depression at my feet should be the one near the control when it was in fact a couple of banana shaped depressions south of where I needed to be, so there went another 4 minutes :(
But the one which really frustrated me was from 12-13 where I should have gone south through the open sand blow and approached from the west, but instead crossed the sand patch and climbed the next sandhill only to find myself looking out on a sea of marram grass and lupins, with no elephant tracks, and at lest 3 ascents and descents of this stuff between myself and the trees where the control would be. By the time I had fought my way there, it would have been quicker to go back down and around, as I had lost another 4 min.
So I lost about 10 min on this course, which was completely unnecessary, and I am a bit pissed off, because I had thought that I am actually able to navigaate in this stuff. But I did manage to win a split (the second-last one, when a herd of junior boys came charging through and I tailed them down the hill). Very hot and sweaty when I finished, and the river looked good so I went for a swim even though it turned out to be only waist deep, and its bottom mud very squelchy underfoot!