JIRCS Individual - Graythwaite - M18 - 5.9km, 360m climb - 1st by 2:20
Knew I had to smash it for several reasons. Wanted to carry on my streak of good JIRC performances, knew Scotland HAD to win since we won the JHI already, and knew that I had forgotten the Individual Performance Trophy back home so had to re-aquire it.... Slightly confused by the weird format on the start line but it was soon very clear - managed to forget about Nathan, Will and Joe starting consecutively behind me.
Straight up the hill to 1, easy, follow the stream and in. Onto 2 and it was another easy one, I was feeling good despite the hard week behind me. 3 looked dodgy but Alex lead me in, and it was also much easier than it looked on the map. 4 was grotty, checked behind for Nathan once I reached the top of the open and he was no-where in sight. Relaxed mentally after this. Bombed it down to 5 but got stuck behind a fallen tree. Really messy to 6 underfoot but battled through. A few hesitations before the control because the ride had been destroyed but it was pretty easy. 7 was fine but I was shattered climbing the hill. Decided to path it right to 8 which was maybe a small mistake because I got stuck in a young X-mas tree forest which was horrible. 9 was then fine though, always controls in there...
Round the hill to 10 which was silly since it was at the top, then straight to 11 which was a common control site too. 12 was good and poor route to 13 but not bad.. Down to 14 which is another common one, then 15.... Always completely blew it here, pushed too hard and though I had gone way off line. Corrected after a few hesitations but I knew I had to relax a bit. Down to 16 was also dodgy though, and I hesitated for around 40s.... Thank god spectator was next....
Overtook Fay just after and got my head back in the game. Final few were all goood and I knew I had posted a good time. Just as I was getting to the last control though I saw Katie screaming on the ground. Did the noble thing and stopped because someone was shouting that she had broken her arm. In the end it was a dislocated shoulder and I didn't do very much to help except pick her up, walk her over to the last control slowly, whilst her shoulder popped back in, and hand her over to adults. They told me to go so I did, beasted the run in, and came back to make sure she was fine and she was.
Stopping cost me two minutes so my winning margin would have been a lot better (which is a nice thought). Love it when near perfect O like that happens, and Katie's injury was a fun new experience for me too (but probably not for her). First sub-10min/km at Graythwaite which is quite good I've heard, shame Belgium isn't like this....
http://lakeland-orienteering.org.uk/uploads/cobalt...