Orienteering race 19:40 [5] 3.5 km (5:37 / km)
shoes: x-talon 212
Broke my rehab only streak to run the State Sprint Distance Champs at Curtin. In hindsight, I kind of wish I hadn't, but it was worth a crack. Pretty sore now. Obviously a long way to go, but it dodn't bother me during the race - I just wasn't good enough / others were too good.
First impression turning over the map was that the purple course print was very light, and it took quite a long time to find the start triangle.
1 - OK route and execution
2 - went the opposite way to most. Don't think there was much in it. Splits will tell. Felt like I was staying in control of the map reading well, but really having to work to do it and not running smoothly.
3 - Wider route than optimum. A little hesitation at one point along the way.
4 - More of an easier running leg. Felt like I was working hard, but the leg turnover was slow.
5 - OK route, but missed one little gap in the buildings, so turned wrong way right next to the control and overran it by about 10m before turning around.
Thought I was still doing alright here, till shortly out of 5 I saw Sten coming in. I reckon he'd at least taken half of the 1 minute gap out of me. Felt pretty deflated.
Ran confidently in to 6, punched, then the alarm bells went off and checked the number. Not 6. But I was 100% confident of where I was. Had run to 9, half way between 5 and 6. Bugger. Figured out where I was meant to be going and got there fine.
7- Nearly tuned into a dead-end, zig zagged out, then turned sharp left and went flat on my side as I got no grip out of my shoes. Got up and going again, before a big hesitation deciding whether the control was at the top or bottom of the wall. Pretty stupid when I knew it was on a tree. Sten caught me here. Hmmm.
8 and 9 OK, but Sten seemed to be in better control than me.
10- Took a crap route and dropped about 15 seconds to Sten. Felt like every one of them as I was doing it.
OK from here through to 15. Left 15 in completely the wrong direction for the short leg to 16 and ran it in a wide semi-circle. Strangely still beat Sten as he went AWOL on this leg.
Hammered to 17 and 18, hoping to stretch a little gap over Sten and maybe sneak into 3rd. Aimed for the gap left of the building at 18, got there and couldn't see anything at all passable, so did 3/4 of a lap of the building to punch just in front of the chasing pack of Sten, Andre and Henry. Pretty gutted that I missed the option of going staight over the mound/building which was the marked gap.
Messy run, but not terrible. Felt like that run on another day would have been enough for a podium, but I guess all the little time losses added to being flat physically did too much damage.
Congrats to Oscar for a 3peat by the age of 16 and Sten and Ben for the minor placings.
and a big thanks to the Wades for a top course.
Orienteering warm up/down 15:00 [3] 3.0 km (5:00 / km)
shoes: x-talon 212
Decent warm-up. Achilles progressively less sore, but still niggly when I started. Had a look at an old sprint map during the warm-up to wake up the nav brain. Unfortunately, the only map I could grab on the way out the door was Minim Cove, which wasn't really relevant to a campus map.
Token coold down afterwards with tRicky.