Orienteering race (Dune Forest) 1:01:42 [4] ***** 9.1 km (6:47 / km) +60m 6:34 / km
spiked:22/29c shoes: adidas swoop 2 - 1st pair
Tentsmuir. 25/59 (Speakey won in 52:28).
Started off the chase in a Swedish sandwhich, Peter Eriksson 8secs in front and Niklas Bratt 6secs behind. Missed 1 very slightly and had to go back for it. With Peter still in sight Niklas and I chased after him. Niklas found 2 for me then I took over - I navigated properly to 3 (2nd fastest split!) and 4 but 5-7 were a case of just running str8 and checking codes with the pack linearly distributed four person strong after picking up Rich Robinson. At the end of the technical first seven controls I was in 5th place! However, after a perfectly well executed long route to 8 running as fast as I could I had dropped 16 places - welcome to my slow world. Niklas was running only slightly stronger and altho he dropped me a few times he made small mistakes and allowed me to catch back up. I lost very small amounts of time on 9, 14, 15 and 20 myself but then let him go for good losing 1.75mins on 23 having to relocate way passed the feature on the track. Punched just after Dave Abrams and failed miserably keeping up with him but not surprising seeing as he was on a proper mission (fast to 24, fastest to 25 - pretty special seeing as he told me he wasn't clean to it). I lost more time with some major hesitancy on 25. I reckon 3mins lost in total.
Tentsmuir is not as good as Culbin, Lossie or Roseisle but I enjoyed it - esp spiking 18 and 19 in the light green, felt like I was properly orienteering for once. Felt really tired last few controls tho. Starting to think that Dr Bone was a bit tired on the first couple of days and is somehow getting fresher thru the week (I demand he takes a drug test) cos he was well outrunning me today. Only he made more mistakes making us close together at the finish - just had me by less than a min and is increasing his overall lead in time and stage wins. I remain pretty dominant over Whitesheep, Paul C and Wee Lad however...
1:3 MB
4:0 TC
4:0 PC
4:0 GE