Orienteering race (NOL ultralong) 2:06:11 [5] 14.4 km (8:46 / km)
Big day out, and felt pretty rubbish from the start. Calf was sore from yesterday, but not enough to not run, so I just hoped it would warm up. Eventually it stopped hurting... but only when enough other things hurt to drown it out.
The start was ok. Slotted into my ploddy spot in the pack and just kept going. Eventually ended up running near Krystal and Tash - they were both running a bit quicker but I managed to stay in touch by taking slightly better route choices. Came through the map change in 5th, then worked out why I'd been so far at the back of the W21 field early on - the alternate split was much shorter - skipped the whole early part of the course. We ended up with Aislinn and then Liis through the common part of the course. The bunch sped up and I got dropped. I then got sucked in by a combination of being super tired and assuming that the last part of the course was common and got dragged off line going to 9 (102). Took a while to relocated and we were much too far down the hill. This was my only real mistake of the course, but it was a big one, and Liis was with me.
From there to the finish was a battle. Liis was just behind me and both calves were starting to cramp badly. but I made sure I hit the last controls well and just held her off on the line.
I'd been looking forward to this race for ages so it was disappointing to feel so rubbish physically. Very flat in general, and then the dodgy calf on top. It didn't get any worse, but running hard wasn't an option. I guess I haven't really recovered from the cold a couple of weeks ago... but I've been feeling pretty rubbish for the last few weeks so its hardly a surprise.
Not sure about the way the course was split - the start was good, I'm not sure what the point of the common section through the middle was, but the ssplit last section I don't think was very fair.