As I mentioned, a very important race today. On the way to the event, Greg and I were engaged in some very enthusiastic heckling (of which my heckles were consistently better), but then Greg proposed a bet. It wasn't a typical bet where we gamble over money, who has to buy lunch, or something else equally lame; no, this bet was slave-for-a-day. The loser has to do anything the winner says for the rest of the day.
I agreed to the bet, figuring that my chances of winning were almost guaranteed (realistically 50%), even though Greg had run in the same forest the day before during the WOC relay. I also considered that Greg is a much stronger runner than I am, and while he did have a hard race yesterday, I had run fairly hard as well (although not as long). My hope was to get into Greg's head just enough that he would be distracted during his race and make a mistake, and as long as I pulled off a clean run I would be able to beat him.
Then the bet became more interesting, as we tried to loop Kseniya into the deal, who was also running M20S that day. She very quickly declined, but the proposal that she would be given a time handicap was soon brought up, and Greg bargained over how much time she would be allotted. Greg, of course, sucked at this part and agreed to give Kseniya a 12 minute handicap, which coincidentally was how long Kseniya started before him (so if Greg finished the race before Kseniya, it would mean he had beaten her in the bet as well). My start was only 4 minutes after Kseniya, so I need to catch and lose her early in the course if I wanted a shot.
At first, my greatest concern was losing to Greg. He knows no form of mercy and would be an cruel ruler if I were to be subjugated to his authority. Then Greg and I slowly realized what a mistake we had made. The course was just over 5km, and Kseniya had a giant handicap. She could effectively run around 2 min/km slower than us (assuming we run between 6-7 min/km) and still win the bet.
This is why I took my warm-up seriously, but I was feeling very good when I walked up to the starting line, and I was able to focus in on my race. I haven't orienteered this fast in a very long time. I made some small mistakes, getting off to the left or right of some controls, but I was able to correct them fairly quickly, and I spiked many (possibly most) controls as well. Early in the race I was breathing hard, but I pushed myself despite everything, reminding myself that I had to outrun Greg and somehow obliterate Kseniya, but I made sure to always pay attention to my navigation.
I first saw Kseniya leaving number 4, which was early enough to give me a chance at making up the 12 minutes I would need in order not to be a slave-for-a-day. Unfortunately, the vegetation around number 5 was incorrectly mapped (3/3 orienteers agree the green area was larger than mapped, particualrly because the control was mapped in a white area but in the forest in was right in a clump of extremely thick vegetation), so Kseniya caught back up to me. Then I got off to the right on number 6 (I was drifting right a lot today), so when I was leaving 6 I noticed Kseniya running into it. After that point I never saw her again, but I was pushing fairly hard to make up and lost time and collect those extra 8 minutes.
As I said before, my race was fairly clean, no huge mistakes, but I did get off to the side a few times on my route choices. I definitely began to slow down as the race progressed, but I was conscious of this as well and really tried to zone in like I would in a running race, and I pushed to make sure I kept up my speed as best I could. I was the first person in M20S to run across the finish line today, and then the waiting game began. Would it be 8 minutes until Kseniya finished her course, or did we give her too much of a handicap? Would Greg run a clean race with no mistakes and beat me out just on speed? Would I have to be someone's slave-for-a-day, or would I gain two servants of my own to obey my every whim until the clock struck 12:00?
Find out by checking out this link to WinSplits:
http://obasen.orientering.se/winsplits/online/en/d...