rogaining race (SA Champs) 12:00:00 [3] 53.0 km (13:35 / km)
shoes: Asics GT-2000
After I had really enjoyed the 12 hour with Zara last month, I started to get keen on the idea of the 24 hour at Whyalla, because it sounded like the sort of terrain with no nasty surprises and where a careful navigator could do well. I found a willing accomplice in Steve Cooper, although he warned me that he wouldn't be able to run much because of a bruised heel sustained orienteering in the Flinders a couple of weeks ago.
We made it to Whyalla by about 10pm Friday and managed to have our rogaine packs sorted the next morning in time to take advantage of the continental buffet breakfast at the motel (rogaine preparation is all about carbo-loading, for me) and then get to the event site on a sheep station near the Middleback Ranges with enough time to put up the tent I didn't intend to sleep in, before map handout.
There were lots of controls - 70 to be exact - and 3/4 of the map was flat vague country with the biggest hills only 20m above the surrounding landscape while in the west were the Middleback Ranges; ironstone hills with active iron ore mining in some areas and ore trains travelling up & down the line to Whyalla, even at night. We calculated that it would require just under 110km in a straight line to get all of the controls. I said to Steve "We're not as young as we used to be" and so we settled on an 80km loop with plenty of possible options for extending/shortening the route towards the end depending on how well we navigated in the night.
Started off in the same direction as Steven & Wes Dose for the first couple of hours but they were running, and gaining almost an extra control/hour on us. Headed west, picked up a couple of controls in the hills (on the Casuarina Ridge O map) then back out onto the plains at about 5.5km/hr, got water at about 23km then up into the hills, slightly overshooting the saddle on 63 because I should have remembered that the sun sets somewhat north of west at this time of year. It had been a perfect afternoon weather wise and the views west from the ridgeline just on dusk were impressive, out over the endless miles of flat mallee scrub towards Secret Rocks with the sun glinting off little salt pans. The climb up the face of Mt Middleback was a slog; 100m elevation in 200m, and afterwards we got our torches out to follow the narrow ironstone ridgeline, glad that it wasn't raining otherwise the rocks could have been really slippery.
Came down off the ridge and headed into the flat stuff about 8pm, confident that we had done all the climb that the course was going to throw at us. Put on a thermal then, and another about 10pm, plus my gloves. Knew it was getting colder as the bubble in my compass expanded, making it a wee bit unreliable - but Steve was super-reliable. Not only are his bearings incredibly dependable, but he pace counts religiously, which is something I hate doing although I'm quite happy to estimate distance by time. And since there was no moon, we had to be very careful with our distances, especially as many of the controls were described as 'a watercourse' but no channel was obvious when we got there.
Anyway, by midnight we had covered about 50km...