Orienteering race (MV Families and Vets) 1:24:10 [4] 6.3 km (13:22 / km) +115m 12:15 / km
spiked:10/20c weight:73kg
Not sure how much my disintegrating right shoe is to blame, but I did not enjoy this at all. My love-hate relationship with orienteering looks set to continue. Despite the weather was really looking forward to it, but felt annoyed as soon as I saw the route to 1. The walk to the start in the rain was filthy and I worried the insulating tape holding the sole of my shoe on wouldn't last. Would I end up retiring? Or walking through the last few controls? I thought the blue course would be tough and technical, but no allowance seemed to have been made for the bracken and other undergrowth that covered almost all the 'white' forest. Running felt almost impossible to me. But could this feeling be due to eyesight or dodgy back? Ah well, run where I can. Dithered on the way to 2 and 7, looking for mapped features after running on a bearing became impossible. Wasted time on 8 sticking to path options. Enjoyed the big holes at 10 and 11, but it was at this furthest point of the map that the tape came off and my sole started to work loose. By 14 I was in real trouble, the heel slipping off the outsole with every step so hobbling was all I could manage. Distraction caused me to mess up 14 and 19, but I got 16-18 reasonably ok. So no massive errors but lack of 'attack' due to kit problems and bad attitude led to very poor result. One bright spot : didn't need an ibuprofen. Second bright spot : Lu came along.