Run race ((orienteering)) 1:18:37 [4] *** 10.1 km (7:47 / km) +480m 6:17 / km
spiked:22/22c
You can't ask for much more in a race than giving it everything you have, and today was a day when that happened. 13th in the long final was the absolute best I could have achieved and it's what I got.
We were sort of expecting a train to form around our start time, with Liggo 2 minutes ahead, and behind at 2 and 4 minutes the fast but erratic Russian Nikolay Sytov (who was in Australia a while back) and Bulgarian Ivaylo Ivanov, whom I considered a good top-five prospect who had run a bad first qualifier. I wasn't, though, expecting it to start so early when I saw Liggo halfway between 1 and 2, looking as if he wasn't quite sure what he was doing. We were sort of together for the next three legs; I got a bit of a lead on the long climb into 3, but he got ahead again when I took a drink on the way to 4 - early in the course, but water opportunities couldn't be passed up today (34 degrees, probably the hottest I've run a long race in).
5-6 was the big route choice leg, 2+ km across the width of the map. I thought the right route, missing most of the climb, was obvious, but it wasn't so obvious to Liggo and Nikolay (who had almost caught us by then) because they went different ways. I never saw Liggo again (he ended up blowing up and had to walk most of the last third), and Nikolay got enough of a jump on me to get clear. Ivaylo also caught me at 6 (which was close to half-distance) and was going faster than I could really handle.
By 40 minutes I had the feeling I was in a bit of trouble. In conditions like these you can lose a lot of time very quickly if you blow up, so I dropped back a gear, walking some of the steepest hills (although we were through the worst of them by then) and concentrating on making sure I hit every control, exactly. I seemed to find a pace that I could maintain; it wasn't easy but I didn't get any worse, and was continuing to hit control after control. By 17 I was starting to go through some of the early starters (and thought I'd seen Ivaylo behind me but was obviously mistaken from the splits), realising that I was on the verge of achieving the rare feat of an effectively technically perfect run, and switching into 'don't stuff this up now' mode. I wasn't that quick at the end but it didn't cost me anything.
I got pretty much everything out of myself that was possible today, both physically and technically. Obviously there have been times in the past when I would have been able to do much more physically - although the clock would, I think, need to have been turned back quite a few years to find the six-minute gap to the top ten - but there's no point in agonising over that. Perhaps I'll get back to an earlier level, most likely I won't, but for now this is a result to be satisfied with.
We leave Hungary tomorrow. Susanne (who, as most of you will know by now, won silver) and Lachlan go back to Budapest and on to Norway, Jenny will be joining me in Croatia for a few days before heading home. My next competitive stop is the Croatia Open, starting Wednesday.