orienteering race (Christmas 5-Days Day 4) 53:46 [4] 6.1 km (8:49 / km) +100m 8:09 / km
shoes: Asics GT-2000
Rather tired this morning; had intended to get up earlier, but slept through my alarm (as did many people, it seems) and had intended to do a proper warmup but ended up just walking to the start with Tracy - it was pretty warm already, but at least still clouded over. Actually, this was a new map for me today - I'd thought we'd be running immediately south of yesterday's area but in fact it was across the road and thankfully rather less green. Equally flat, except for one big hill at the southern end of the course up which I had to walk, but I could see Tracy walking up in front of me (she'd started 2 min ahead). She kindly offered me a drink when I caught her at the drink control but I foolishly wanted to see if I could manage ok until the end. Hindsight says that with a cooler brain I may not have veered too far right when approaching a little gully on the creek at 17, and then compounded the error by thinking I still needed to go further right (but then I veered to the right on a number of other bearings also, so that's something I need to watch out for tomorrow).
Right near the end, heel blister became raw, which lacked pleasantness, and it's still painful this evening even though we did no strenuous exercise this afternoon but instead sampled the wares of places purveying cheese, chocolate, wine and beer, then drove via Broke to the historic village of Wollombi and back through Cessnock. Many of the towns around here have crepe myrtle as street trees and they are blooming gorgeously in pinks and purples (despite not having been pruned to within an inch of their life as I'd always thought is recommended in order to encourage flowering).