Irish Long distance on Lough An Cogair, course was 8.5km. Really wanted to have a clean run on this course more than anything but I didn't have a great start, which seems to be a regular occurrence these days.. One was good but then going to 2 I got a bit confused if I was in the right re-entrant losing about 30s. Lost another 20s going to 3 when I went to the wrong boulder. 4 was good was able to bomb it down to the pond. Lost about 30s going to 5 when I went to the wrong depression filled with boulders.. Going to 6 I must have ran within 5m of the control as I preceded to head to a different re-entrant, lost about 3mins! 7 was easy but my nose started to bleed on the way to it and continued to bleed until 11, which was a bit distracting. However, my orienteering started to get a bit better now, 7 was good as was 8, then bombed it down the hill to 9. 10 was handy enough. Bombed it across to 11 for a cheeky spike. 13 through to 17 were clean. 18 and 19 were clean. 20 was good then got a bit confused on the way to 21 so was a bit hesitant. Spotted Cillin on the way to 23 so that was a bit of an incentive to push a bit harder. 24 still chasing down Cillin on the way round the hill, could also see dad heading over the hill too. Then dropped down and got a nice lead into the control from Dad, but was still a bit hesitant on the approach to the control. Caned it across to 25 went to the wrong side of the boulder which was a bit annoying but didn't read my descriptions properly. Across to 26 was a bit of a pain going back up the hill, then bombed it down to 27 and finish. So had a real nice end of the course but before that I was a bit crap really. Was just really scrappy and doing stupid things.. My fitness isn't the problem anyway because I wasn't feeling tired really. Definitely could have pushed harder. Overall lost about 4 and a half minutes overall..
Routegadget 