orienteering race (Oaklands Summer Series) 31:29 [3]
shoes: Asics Kayano 18
Started a minute before Steve Sullivan and was a bit surprised when he caught me less than 10 minutes in but suspected he'd not been to a control that I got first up in the reserve before crossing the trainline/Sturt Creek. Lost a few sec at the tennis court when kids asked me to retrieve their ball and throw it back over the fence! Was surprised when Steve headed for the easternmost control which I'd identified as one of my 5 to leave out, because I was pretty sure he was getting 15, the same as me.
Decided that since the control on the railway crossing at Marion station was on the west side, I'd approach it from the northwest rather than going all the way up the 8 levels of zigs and then down the 8 levels of zags, so crossed the (currently closed for electrification) line further north and then stupidly forgot which street I was heading down and so had to go past the same control twice on my way to and from the station. Was sure that Steve would have got past me due to this, then saw him heading for the control I'd got first up, and he finished about a minute after me. He said "Did you go to the one in the NE corner instead of the easternmost one?" and I said "No, I left both of those out!" He said "Well, did you go to the SE corner?" and I said "No, I left that out too!"
Turns out there were accidentally 21 controls on the map/course...and I religiously counted up 15 punch marks on my card (remembering an event where there had only been 19 controls out and so I ended up one short) while Steve had simply left off 5 controls, inadvertently punching 16!
There were Sullivans on my tail riding home, too :)