Autumn Series at Boundary Creek. Took me a long time to wake up this morning and I wasn't feeling that great when I started - a mood which was not helped when I went in one gully too early and dropped 45 seconds or so on #1. Settled down after that, and the back was functioning OK, but still not really running hills which made the mostly uphill second half a bit of a slog. Was around Ted for a bit in the middle but this was definitely not a fast train. Got a bit of a second wind after #12, which I dropped another minute or so on (perhaps because I'd got the "I am really going to finish this" feeling), and somehow got the second-fastest split on #14 which makes me wonder what everyone else was doing.
Getting through this is another incremental addition to confidence. The lead times weren't as fast as I was expecting (Richard Goonan did 68) - although Bruce's injury had a bit to do with that, and I think if any of the big three had run they would have got close to 50. (At my mid-late 1990s peak I usually expected to do mid-6s in standard central Victorian gully-spur, although this course was probably a bit steeper than the norm).
The course managed to make a decent job of an awkward area - the southern half of the map was unavailable because of a fuel reduction burn a few weeks ago, which Prue thought was a bit too hot (at least they presumably didn't
fry any numbats).
Biggest week of running since 2018.