orienteering race (Kooyoora Ultralong) 2:54:22 [3] 13.3 km (13:07 / km)
shoes: Inov8 Oroc spikes
Stayed up rather too late talking to Hania last night and then didn't really feel awake enough for breakfast (it's really pointless to have pre-race nerves when you're not actually capable of racing), but made myself eat plenty 'cos I figured I'd be out for about 3 hours. Didn't get around to warming up because it took me so long to tape my ankles, but figured it didn't matter.
Already in last place out of the women's mass start and we all followed the decommissioned no-longer mapped singletrack south without really thinking about how far along it we were, which led to some interesting overshoots. Also interesting was the course configuration, as it turned out; you could have either 300m, 500m or 800m for the first leg, but everyone ended up at the same 'pivot' control about 1.2km in. Which meant, in the end, that I ran the same singletrack 3 times, as did probably everyone but Blair, by which time it was no longer looking decommissioned!
The courses all then went downhill through some thick stuff into a nice open fairly flat bit before heading west (or on the last loop, east) and I took the track, which I could run on okay, but going uphill I just had no power in my legs and was reduced to walking even the slightest incline. Oh well, at least my knee didn't twinge much. And I made a good save at the end of a shocking bearing by figuring out fairly quickly that I was actually 200m east of where I needed to be on 17. By halfway through the second loop I was absolutely starving - hadn't realized it was going to be the longest loop or I would have had my muesli bar before, not after that loop - but it was a nice surprise to hear Toph say at the map changeover that the last loop was only 3.5km (a bit different for the men!).
Still, a tough last loop with a big hill up which I staggered trying not to crush the little helmet orchids, after the control on the sinkhole in the rock, which was probably my favourite of today's sites. I took 53 min for this loop compared with 50 for the first, so maybe it wasn't that much worse at the end. Don't know how I can improve my ability to lift my legs over stuff; much of the time I just felt like I was treading water. But I did have fun, and the time passed quickly...didn't feel like nearly 3 hours out on course!