orienteering race (ACT NOL middle) 45:49 [4] 5.4 km (8:29 / km) +105m 7:44 / km
shoes: Inov8 Oroc spikes
G & I flew to Canberra last night and stayed with a friend who we were dropping to the airport before 6am, after which we drove up Red Hill to watch the sunrise. It got a bit cold, sitting there for an hour, which was probably not the ideal start to the day when I was also starting a cold, but the views were lovely.
The race was on Wild Deer Sands, east of Bungendore. We had a WOC trials middle there a few years ago and I remembered low-visibility wattle regrowth with lumps and bumps from sand mining, but not a lot in the way of identifiable contours. So I figured I'd need to be careful with my compass - and I was, taking things pretty carefully and often stopping to figure out what on earth I'd just passed. In particular I found it hard to interpret the little ponds and swamps as to whether they would have water in or not, but also with 2 different sizes of high point symbol (!), not being able to tell whether the lump in front of me would be mapped as a high point or a knoll, or whether the pile of logs in front of me would have been mapped with a green line or not, I probably lost more time to hesitations than I'd first realised. Laurina went past me through 5-6-7 (where I was standing pretty much next to it but didn't expect the control to be physically in a depression) and then to my surprise I caught up to Rachel who was obviously having a shocker of a day and continued to do so; I kept seeing her on & off for the rest of the course.
G & I headed out to Braidwood for lunch and then drove the back way through to Captains Flat, which was pleasant, but never warm. Arrows went out for dinner at an Italian restaurant and Bridget ambushed me with birthday cake :)