Orienteering race 3:59:15 [4] *** 26.0 km (9:12 / km) +635m 8:12 / km
ahr:151
Giant's Rib Raid Adventure Run. An awesome day in so many ways! We were lucky to get amazing spring weather - a frosty morning followed by bright, warm sun. After the race, people hung out on the deck in short sleeves for hours. We got to see dozens of AR and orienteering friends, and it was exciting to watch most of central Canada's best teams competing hard on the race course. Hammer's race course design was interesting and fun, and even though we live locally, there were surprises for us. I learned that there is a big difference between being familiar with a specific location and being able to choose a good route to get there quickly! And many of those routes took us through areas where we hadn't travelled before. It was our best adventure run ever, admittedly helped in part by local knowledge, but we also ran more and faster than we usually do. (A big thanks to Bent, who towed me on the road and the longer trail sections - and ignored my epithets as we hurtled together down icy hills.) Hingo, Bent and I have done so many events together that our teamwork is reasonably fine-tuned, which helps us move more quickly and makes the day more fun. My Flying Pig orienteering experience was very useful - great practice for making route decisions on the fly. We finished 9th, which was totally unexpected and completely blew us away. Several months ago, we'd set a goal of reaching the top ten, but we'd abandoned hope when we saw the strong field entered in this race. We're especially proud of the great performance of our 17-year-old junior Tree Hugger friend, Pate Neumann, and his team of Brittanys from the local high school.