Orienteering race 1:23:28 [3] 10.42 km (8:01 / km) +252m 7:09 / km
shoes: VJ Bold
Still can't retire... I would have liked to be either further up the results, or closer to the winning time. I could have done this if I had orienteered better today. More annoyingly I believe I could have done better if the map had been properly printed. It is getting very frustrating that "printing technology advances" are ruining the efforts of mappers and setters. My old Badja maps are beautiful works of art, the thing I got to run with in this event is appalling. I personally like competing on 1:15,000 maps but I don't see the point if doing so makes the map illegible. The 1:10,000 versions are a bit better but still nothing like the old versions. I think I would have preferred just to run the previous course on that old used map.
Started cautiously but OK. Caught Marina at 4 but instead of keeping on doing what I had been, started racing her. Pushed a bit hard up to 5 and consequently was left, corrected well enough, bit lost a bit there. Got 6 OK but misread the map for 7. I could not see the 4.5m cliff our control was supposed to be on (on the map, I could see it in the terrain but was quite confused). Headed to 8 well but drifted right into the boulders and went too low. Saw Marina heading to 9 but still took a good couple of minutes to srot myself out. Then 9 was a disaster. Left the track too early. Went back to start again and left it too early again. My map is not legible here - bits of the contours have rubbed off, I could not for the life of me interpret what I was trying to see. Eventually got 9 and took off madly to 10. Did not see the small fenceline track on my map and bolted down it to the homestead (all the time thinking this should be up not down...) Headed north and decided to get 10 from the north-south fenceline. Quite a good approach but I got the boulder just south and lost a bit of time working that out ($32 well spent on a magnifier was well worth it right here, wish I'd been able to use it at 9). By this time I was completely frazzled. Substantial mistakes at 8, 9 and 10! I headed to 11, alarm bells ringing about looking at my map but I just couldn't. My brain was tired. I had no idea where I was, just a vague feeling I was the right general direction. Luckily found a significant, unmistakeable feature and got my control from there. Not a good way to be. Decided to take a bearing to 12 and take it slowly. Gradually as I worked my way along the leg everything settled down and I was reading the map again. 13 was weird, I think that the boulder near the control is oriented 90ยบ out). 15 I was again wonky and Bridget came past here. I like the way she orienteers and I started to get confident and see things again. Fading up to 19 but then Kathryn and Jo came along. Followed Kathryn to 20 but fortunately made my own way to 21 as the pack went off to the south. Tired getting to the finish, but that was just from the open running we'd been through.