rogaining race (Black Rock Rogaine) 11:58:00 [3] 36.0 km (19:57 / km)
shoes: Asics Kayano 22
But actually, the night wasn't that bad apart from our complete failure at 4am to find a control on a creek junction in the mallee (we spent 45 min going up & down the creek but obviously never went far enough downstream), although it was pretty lonely; we saw a couple of teams at the SW water drop at 9pm and then no other humans until the safety loop car came to the eastern water drop at 5am. It wasn't particularly cold either; only a 2-thermal night despite the initial frosty forecast, and 'warm' enough for a very brief nap on the ground at 6am without even a coat on.
After sunrise it was a pleasant morning to be strolling among the hills, although my feet were telling me otherwise and as I got slower, our likelihood of being ahead of any of the 4 teams who had the possibility of beating us, decreased...then for good measure we ended up way too far east of a creek junction in the vague flat mallee (I have never navigated so poorly as I did on this rogaine: bearing too far right all the time, poorly estimating distance, inability to distinguish between macro and micro contours; think I was just too tired to focus on the map properly) and we also ended up 5th overall despite a last-minute jog to a couple of extra controls near the HH.
Good work by Paul & Des who were 240 points ahead of us and understandably a bit disappointed not to take home the winners' trophy because Wil & Dave from WA cleaned up the entire course - I had anticipated that they would achieve this, but didn't expect them to do so before breakfast!