Run race ((orienteering)) 41:36 [4] *** 6.4 km (6:30 / km) +100m 6:02 / km
spiked:16/19c
First day of Norwegian O-Festival, in very un-Norwegian terrain - a flat military area near Gardermoen airport, with zillions of tracks, the odd sandpit and clearing, and thick forest with vague knolls, depressions and pits in it. Reminded me a bit of the areas around Aldershot in southern England.
First bit of excitement was before the start, as we arrived to be greeted by a squadron of riot police. Before you start getting any ideas about how Norwegian orienteers behave if they've had a bad run, it turned out that the military camp where the event centre was also houses a group of asylum-seekers who the government is trying to deport back to Afghanistan (obviously they've been getting ideas from us). Naturally the asylum-seekers weren't too happy about this and decided that a good way to draw media attention to themselves was to blockade the road to the event. I couldn't imagine an orienteering event being used for a political protest in Australia! Anyway, that had all been sorted out by the time we got there and the police were just finishing clearing up.
Once it came to the actual run, there were a couple of small mistakes early before I started to realise just how easy this area was, and that the optimal strategy was to stay on tracks for as long as you could. I think I probably ran 75% of my course on tracks and it should have been 85%. Tomorrow is the important one for me (world ranking event) - today I was running 21A while the elites were off doing a sprint race, and while I was running reasonably hard I was also being a bit experimental with my route choices. Surely it will be harder tomorrow? I was 3rd when I left but expect I'll drop a few places.
6.5 minutes per km is definitely a PB for Norway.