rogaining race (SA Champs Oodla Wirra) 11:49:00 [3] 41.0 km (17:18 / km)
shoes: Asics GT-2000
I stuffed up 83 by thinking I'd overshot the correct gully on a downhill leg, because I didn't see that it curved under the control circle, but actually that was a control which lots of teams had trouble with and it seems that the eventual winners never found (they would otherwise have cleaned up the course with an hour to spare).
I was getting a bit anxious because we needed to be at 92 in the far SE corner of the map by 6am to achieve everything we intended to do in the morning and there weren't many shortcut options for that final section, but we managed a steady crawl up & over rocky Nackara Hill, without getting blown away - it seemed to be blowing a gale on every high ridgeline. Last leg before 92 was 3km across absolutely flat open land but there was a dam halfway and we aimed off ok from there, arriving at 5:55am, which was when I finally put on a second layer. Now for a slog along the old abandoned railway line for the next 3 controls, trying not to think about either a nap or our feet. I was looking forward to a few more controls involving navigation, but then we decided to add in an extra out towards flat country, which we knew would be pushing it for time - and so I promptly took off at an angle about 30 degrees too far east, never spotting the track we were meant to have crossed, climbing an unmapped small knoll and of course not finding a control beyond it but having a view clear across to The Cone where we had been at 9pm (the course almost lent itself to crossovers).
Aargh! Another 15 min wasted but our route towards the next control took us past the hill we wanted anyway, and then the next 3 hours were a steady slog through often low-visibility scrub in the morning sun, and we had time at the end to get an extra 20 points just south of the HH although Zara said no way were we running to it. And we didn't have to; got in with 10 min to spare although a number of teams had nearly an hour because with no controls for nearly 3km in a westerly direction from the HH, anything else was too far for them to bother going to get. Ended up 3rd overall, 130pts behind Steve Cooper/Dave Nicolson and the winners were the NZ guys. Top 10 was pretty well stacked with people practicing for the WRC; Susanne & Plaxy about 200 points behind us and the Colwells only 100. I think Z & I can be a bit faster, both on our feet and at navigation, in a couple of months' time, even if I'm not as young as I used to be and this rogaine has made me a year older...
midday-->6pm 15 controls, 26.5km, 820pts
6pm--> midnight 11 controls, 16.5km, 620pts
midnight --> 6am 9 controls, 14.5km, 570pts
6am--> midday 13 controls, 24.5km, 630pts
So we finished off almost as fast as we started, although there was of course a fair bit of time wasted in the first couple of hours.
Also I think I did pretty well with carbo-loading and in fact didn't eat that much out on course (by my standards):
4 baked potatoes with cheese - accidentally left the Vegemite home :(
3 toasted English muffins with cheese
3 muesli bars
3 ginger nut biscuits
2 dried bananas
handful of BBQ shapes - the old kind before Arnotts rearranged the taste
salt & magnesium tablets, coffee lollies
fruit from water drops: 1 banana, 2 apples, 2 mandarins
And the best bit was that they actually had sausages for lunch at the hash house - yay! I was so disappointed last year when it was only stew...
We traded Susanne for all the tables & chairs which went into Zara's car, hastily packed up the tents because it was starting to rain (so I didn't manage to get a proper nap before driving) then headed off with 4 of us in an absolutely-laden car - dad having the bucket of randomness wedged between his knees! My knees would neither straighten nor bend by the time we reached Burra but my toes were in much better shape than Susanne's or Zara's (and I hate to think what Chris Brown & Karen's were like after wearing hiking boots). We got the last cottage at Paxton Sq, had a hot shower and dined on random rogaine leftovers and were all, including parents who'd had a busy weekend of helping on admin, in bed by about 7pm although not before Susanne had worked out what she considered to be the optimum route for cleaning up the entire course in about 95km.
I guess we are all rogaining nerds, in my family :)