Orienteering 53:11 [4] 5.8 km (9:10 / km) +75m 8:37 / km
shoes: Brooks Cascadia 5
Austalian Long Distance Champs at Golden Fleece near St Helens. This was my first time in the tin mining terrain and I was so pleased I had had a walk around the model area. An easy spur/gully leg to 1 then down the hill into the tin mining, and that was where we were for most of the course. A good steady start through 1 and 2 and then I was a bit vague on 3 so just ran down the right hand of all the tin mining until it 'felt right' and turned left into the control. I headed to the left on the long leg to 4 to avoid a lot of the green around the river which was on the straight line. Just a small hesitation checking the other small knoll in the circle cost about 20 seconds. The leg through to 6 was a matter of touching some of the paths along the way and then picking up the right one that got me as near to the control as I could, because it is just flat and vague with limited visibility from the mallee like trees and bushes. Going to 8 was fine except for the 200m of clay pan we had to run through which just built up on the bottom of my shoes until they had doubled in size and weight. I headed off in the general direction of 9, stopping at a little rock outcrop to scrape the clay off the bottom of my shoes, and then went on with a spring in my step. I used the area around 6 as my attack point which worked out really well. On 10 I decided to play it safe so ran hard for the track to the right of the straight line and then used it to cross the green and then went from the bend straight to the control. I drifted a bit to the right in the last part of the leg going to 11 and hit the erosion gully so I over corrected back to the left to bounce off another erosiion gully but I knew where I was so went straight to the control. Straight to 12 where I saw Geoff Todkill who was the first person I had seen on my course since the first control. On the leg from 13 to 14 there were two deep 'uncrossable' erosion gullies, but I proved them wrong and went straight and crossed both, but I did have to climb a small tree to get out of the first one. My intention was to cross the first at the junction where it wasn't black and then run around the second, but I missed the first by being too far left so just ploughed on. No bad legs and I was happy with most of my navigation plus I felt like I kept my focus the whole way.
I finished in 3rd place but 9 minutes behind Geoff Lawford and 5 minutes behind Darryl Smith, both excellent runs. Ted van G was only 17 seconds back in 4th so lucky I didn't take too long getting out of the gullies.
Orienteering warm up/down 20:00 [3]
shoes: Brooks Cascadia 5
A nice long warm up to calm the nerves and focus the mind.