Run 1:15:00 [3] 16.0 km (4:41 / km)
A morning run from home which developed into a nice one, particularly in the second half. Did the Yallambie rollercoaster for the first time in a while, taking me past the new prison (it's actually called Streeton Primary School, but the intimidating high fence would do justice to a minimum-security penal facility). Particularly nice rolling down the gentle hill through Rosanna Parklands, always a good way to finish a run. Would have been quite happy to go on for longer so hopefully tomorrow is similar.
My good mood continued to the bike but was rudely interrupted when I experienced my worst bit of road rage for several years, from the unlikely quarter of a fifty-something woman in an expensive car, her tirade finishing with the charming sentiment that "I hope someone runs you over sometime". If she'd been concentrating on the road rather than her horn she might have noticed that the reason I'd moved out from the gutter (the presumed casus belli) was because there was a fallen tree half-blocking the lane 50 metres up the road and she would have had to have gone around it whether I was there or not.
We get a few of the rural papers at work ('Queensland Country Life' often provides a bit of entertainment with their rants - they sometimes left the impression that if they were in a room with Peter Beattie, Osama bin Laden, a gun and two bullets, they would shoot Peter Beattie twice). I noted that 'Stock and Land' had an ad for socks which supposedly don't catch grass seeds. If they actually live up to their claims I can imagine they might have a market in Queensland orienteering.
I also got a bit of a laugh this morning on seeing a headline on the 'Guardian''s website, "Rachel Johnson wins Bad Sex Award". (In case you're wondering, the Rachel Johnson they were talking about is a British writer, and the award is a somewhat tongue-in-cheek one bestowed every year by some British literary worthies for the worst depiction of a love scene in literature in the preceding 12 months).
Run race ((street-O)) 44:40 [4] * 10.4 km (4:18 / km) +230m 3:52 / km
spiked:16/18c
There was probably a certain amount of karma to the fact that, after having a bit of fun at Rachel Johnson's expense in the previous entry, I would spend a fair proportion of this evening's run looking at her rear.
The event was at Tunstall Junction in Doncaster East (presumably not named in Arthur's honour) and was advertised as 11.1k, on the long side for a warm night. (The courses are often long here because of the limited number of freeway crossings and a convoluted street pattern in places - it's one of the few places where I've failed to get all the controls at a score event).
The start was pretty fast despite Bryan's absence, and for the first three controls I was only about sixth or seventh, but had worked my way to the lead by 14 (about 3k in). This was the critical decision point - I got the selection of controls right but lost concentration and got my route to the next control wrong. This did have the effect of causing an explosion of the lead pack (and flinging Adam into outer space, or at least onto a route that was at least 1k longer than the rest of us); once the dust had settled at the next control I found myself about 100 metres behind Rachel and Peter Hobbs. Both of them were moving very well (I needed to look at the Garmin to reassure myself that it was them being fast, not me being slow) and it took me a few controls to make much headway on them, but I ended up going through them on some small hills in the middle and built up enough of a lead to be comfortable. Faded a bit in the last quarter but the race was won by then unless I did something stupid (and I'd exhausted my stupidity quota for the night). Rachel was about 200 metres behind and Peter another 100 behind that; Adam was about 4-5 minutes down.