Orienteering race 1:05:14 [4] **** 6.2 km (10:31 / km) +130m 9:31 / km
ahr:155 max:176 spiked:14/20c slept:6.5 shoes: VJ Falcons
Scottish 6 Days, Day 5 - Barry Buddon, W35L (course 37)
Position: 18/34
My best run of the week, much to my surprise. Since I was starting at lunchtime (again), I ate lunch just over an hour before my run & so was fine at the end. I was a bit worried that it would be too bright out in the open & I'd need sunglasses (it wasn't & I didn't) and that it would be too hot without a hat (which I didn't have for running in) and I'd get sunstroke (I didn't - it wasn't that hot). So after lots of worrying, I turned out to have a good run. I was glad I was starting later & so there were elephant tracks through the long grass, or I would have been a lot slower.
I did make a number of small mistakes, though:
#1: I was put off a bit by having to go backwards off the start when everyone else was going forwards, so I was a bit uncertain heading off.
1-2: I was careful setting off on this leg as I could see that it was a tricky one through the woodland with all the knolls. So I carefully ticked off the ditches while running on a rough bearing to the large clearing. But then, exiting the large clearing I got pulled south, rather than SW and ended up in the wrong clearing. I realised straight away & found my control, but having gone wrong I was a bit hesitant that I'd misinterpreted my mistake.
Lost 2 mins.
2-3: Having gone wrong finding #2, I was a bit hesitant heading the 100m to #3, but I found it OK.
Lost 30 secs.
3-4: Again I headed off on a rough bearing, intending to use the bridge over the ditch as my attackpoint, but instead I hit the pair of knolls just north of it & having worked out that was where I was, used them instead.
Lost 30 secs.
5-6: I found it hard going across the open area and drifted too far west to the obvious break in the hills, which I realised was the one beyond my control, so I just bent around the hill & into my re-entrant.
Lost 1 min.
10-11: At the end of the leg, just by the control, I got a bit confused in the bowl at the bottom of the hills and thought my control was in a re-entrant part way up the enclosing hills. So I started to head around the bowl on the path, only to realise that my re-entrant was actually in the bottom of the bowl & cut into it.
Lost 20 seconds.
14-15: I was a bit hesitant running along the side of the ridge & cut across too soon & had to run up & down along the top of the ridge to my control.
Lost 30 seconds.
I had a bit of a battle with another lass on my course (who splitsbrowser revealed to be Anna Chapman) over the middle section of the course. She caught me at 7, and got away from me on the way to #10 (she's a faster runner than me), but then she came past me again on the way to 15 and having watched her missing #16, I didn't see her again.
GPS distance: 7.08km.