Run race ((orienteering)) 23:43 [4] *** 3.6 km (6:35 / km) +90m 5:51 / km
spiked:25/25c
Added another country (and another continent) to my orienteering list with this event, a sprint event at one of the local universities in Pretoria. The 'terrain' itself was pretty much what you'd expect of a campus sprint at home with a few more uncrossable fences (building fences is clearly a lucrative industry in this part of the world) - a decent course on the whole, with some good route-choice legs, 16 and 19 in particular. (On both of these I took reasonably straightforward southern routes; I think this was probably the best option on 16, but the straighter route on 19 was probably fractionally quicker if you could execute it). Started running OK but, as usual this year, lacking a top gear (and I don't think Pretoria's high enough to be able to blame altitude).
I expected to be 4-5 minutes down on Michael Crone and was. What was more surprising is that Michael didn't win. The South Africans are clearly excited about the prospects of their best two juniors and on the evidence of today they have good reason to be. Brad Lund's run today, if he can reproduce it in July, is, I think, a top-quarter JWOC run, perhaps more.
Probably as well this was a morning race; I only slept intermittently after 3am and suspect I'll pay for it this afternoon.
And I'm feeling a lot more relaxed about being on the local streets in the early mornings this week now that I know that a night urban rogaine was run (without incident) in suburban Johannesburg last week.