orienteering long (Narrinyeri Hills) 1:55:42 [3] 6.9 km (16:46 / km) +220m 14:28 / km
shoes: Asics Gel 2160
Um, well, what can I say about this? At least it was a nice day weather wise...had intended to go out early after setting up from 8am, and come back to help on the finish but got caught up with little details like putting out bunting for the kids' courses, and when I started my head wasn't really in it. Neither were my legs, which weren't at all keen on lifting themselves over anything or going above a jog, so consequently I walked the majority of the course.
Lots of mistakes because I just wasn't properly focused: on 3 where others have said there was more rock than mapped, although I was too far west (trying to read the vegetation boundary) and therefore found no rock for quite a while; on 8 where I had to have a couple of goes and went way past the rock; on 14 where I was too far east and had to bounce off the track beyond and have another go; on 15 where I must have been so close but didn't go quite far enough down the hill (at least I went back up to relocate off an obvious feature fairly quickly) and on 18 where I looked on the wrong rocks.
Oh, and then there was number 5, circled on a small knoll in the green along the creek and the description was high point (brown dot) 2.5m high, north side, which seemed a bit odd as the high side was the southern/creek-facing one. I did a couple of laps of this and found no control, then, figuring that the description better reflected one of the high points I'd passed coming down the creek, went back to check both of them out, then back to the knoll, did another lap and a half of it, decided that the control simply wasn't there and so on my way towards the enxt control detoured back past the start to ask Lexie what the story was? She said that her dad's tape had been found on the high point further upstream but that they had to go with the knoll which was circled on the map, and that since that knoll was so overgrown, the people putting the control out decided to put the actual flag about 10-15m to the north. Pity I came from the south and never went more than 7m north of the control...
Anyway, all these minor frustrations paled into insignificance beside the news from Canberra that Geoff Mercer died of a heart attack while out rogaining with Alex Tyson on Saturday. (Apologies to Richard if you haven't heard from another source already.)