rogaining race (WRC 2016) 11:30:00 [3] 30.0 km (23:00 / km)
(sick) shoes: Keen trail shoes
Uncharacteristically, I made mention of a nap when we stopped to refold the map at midnight, and Zara looked at me in surprise. I wasn't serious, just daydreaming...also daydreaming about a cup of tea from the All Night Cafe in the centre of the map, but we agreed that it was a lure placed there in order to attract Pokemon and their catchers, because to the south of it was the escarpment which could only be accessed from further east or further west and so although we could have gone there through spinifex country in time to arrive about 4am, decided instead to follow a big creek SE to 49, through a low saddle to 116, and via 87 to the easternmost water drop which we reached about 11 hours since we had last been to water. (Susanne & Plaxy also had to reroute their course to reach this drop.) We saw Rob & Kathryn casually hooning past as we left 56 after this and Rob said that he had just filled up with 5.5 litres of water! I haven't mentioned yet how diligent the people manning the water drops were, camped there all night and recording the number from every team which passed through & checking where they were headed next.
Zara was still hoping that we might be able to do the southern spinifex section, on a plateau above the escarpment and which looked fairly subtle with some reasonably high points in a 20km line back towards the HH. Even though my trail shoes were excellent against spinifex, my orienteering gaiters weren't (shins padded but of course there's no real protection on the sides) and I was keen to avoid any big ups & downs because I was using all my energy on the navigation. Sore throat was a nuisance too, making it hard to swallow food or drink water, and I had to keep the Panadol up regularly. But at least it was a mild night where only one thermal was plenty and I would guess minimum 9-11 degrees.
I suggested not going further south as our time to cover this ground would be a bit unknown and the options for shortcuts at the end were limited because the only real way back was along a gorge. Plus there were still quite a few high points between us and the ANC and I'd thoughtfully left 102 north of the road for us to get after that :)
76, 95, 107 as the sky was lightening in the east (and actually the moon had been helpful too, but even before it rose it had been possible to switch off our torches and look at the shape of the horizon by the darklight all around us; at one point I couldn't help but give Z an impromptu astronomy lesson) and the sun just peeped over the hill as we turned east to come down from here. This moment on a rogaine makes the night all worthwhile, and we turned south to briefly cross the first red-rock range through a gap to 94, back out another gap to 57, meaning that we reached the ANC about half an hour later than originally planned but they were still able to make me that cup of tea at 8:30 and we were only there for 5 min - I didn't even need more water because I was having trouble drinking. Was nice to grab an apple there too. One thing I really appreciate on SA rogaines is the fruit at water drops. I'd take extra food to compensate against this absence but ended up eating only half of what I carried...
76 on a low range, 35 which was 2.5km down the road and I tried to jog but my best Cliff Young was only equivalent to Zara's fast walk because my feet were absolutely killing me (great grip on these shoes but not much cushioning), 102, to the north and then 64 which was along the line of hills following a string of people through the buffel-grass. Tracking was starting to become really obvious by now and although we had allowed 2 hours to get the couple of controls which were all that was available to us in the last 6km, after the steep scramble up to 52 there was a superhighway down the valley past 73, and the NZ supervets ladies were walking much faster than me but even so, we popped out into the main gorge at 11:15am and Zara did mention the 30pts about 2km south of there, with the words "but we'd have to run back" which is normally a challenge I'm up for, but I looked at my feet and they said "sorry boss, we just can't do it" so they carried me very slowly north towards the hash house on a lovely vehicle track but at that point, roads were even worse than cross-country on my feet.
Z was very patient with me but I can't believe that I stopped and gibbered at the river crossing only 500m S of the HH, when normally I love wading through knee deep - but my shoes were supposedly waterproof and I just couldn't see how there was room for water in them as well as my feet! Among the string of people overtaking us at this point, one guy offered to carry me over, but I told myself not to be ridiculous and plodded through, eventually finishing at 11:38am with 2400 pts. Fairly happy with the effort I'd managed to put in (except for the last hour or so) but feeling as though it was about 20% less than I'd originally hoped to be able to achieve (2800 would have been a good score, I think). Mind you, I couldn't complain about the way the controls had gone for us in the night, and after hearing other people's tales of woe about sometimes losing up to 2 hours on a control (a situation I'm not unfamiliar with) or having to seriously reconfigure their routes to get water, I started to feel less guilty about not having done proper planning and having been so slow.
The nice surprise, though, came at the presentations - 2nd women's vets, 190 pts behind the Russian women (who were 3rd women overall) and only 20 pts ahead of Susanne & Plaxy who were wishing that they had got an extra 30 which they would have had time for since they came in at 11:15. But it still meant that we were all on the podium together, which was nice. Sus was heard to say afterwards to a very happy Plaxy "Maybe we should consider training next time"!