Run race ((orienteering)) 2:07:07 [4] *** 15.5 km (8:12 / km) +710m 6:40 / km
spiked:22/24c
NOL long at Mount Ainslie. This was expected to be tough - a long race, plenty of climb, and a warm day - and I wasn't overwhelmed with confidence after the last week. Part of me was thinking to treat it as a weekend long run, except for the minor detail that my recent weekend long runs have been done in temperatures anywhere from 25 to 50 degrees colder (it was 24-27 during the race, and quite humid).
As expected the first leg was very long but there was only one real option, so it was mostly a track run as I fell gradually off the bunch, realising as I did so that today was going to be about enduring rather than racing. Started to settle through the butterfly section and work my way through the midfield pack, getting to near its front by the end of that section. Hit a very low patch on the next long leg (where I went left) and had about a 10-minute section where I was really struggling. Caught Murray coming out of 10 and got a second wind from that, which meant not being too rattled by the annoyance of a mistake on the supposedly trivial 12 in the CSIRO grounds going into the map change.
I'd slowly realised on the first loop that it hadn't really had that much climb (unless you went straight on 1 and 10), so was anticipating a lot on the second loop - perhaps a leg straight up the mountain. That bit was wrong - we went up the mountain in four legs rather than one. In a sense, though, it wasn't such a bad thing for someone who was struggling a bit - I was walking for most of the big climbs but so was everyone else. Came in low to 16 and dropped another minute or so, bringing me there just in front of a few others. Several of them were gone by then and posed no threat, but we emerged from the top of a climb with a pack of 3 - David Brownridge and Matt Parton being the others.
The descent to 18 was technically scary; I wasn't sure whether I wanted to lead and told Dave so (and he felt likewise), but with a track only a couple of contours below I was comfortable with a straight attack with a ready bounceback option, which wasn't needed. A small climb out of 20 was enough to drop Matt, and by 22, the last bush control, we'd gone through Aaron and were almost on Evan. Dave, whose endurance impressed me today, had a bit too much left for me then, and we couldn't quite get Evan. I thought I'd struggle to hold a 30-40 metre gap on Aaron, too, on the last 300 metres across the ovals, but managed to do it.
In one sense I'm reasonably happy with lasting this one out, and 12th is a result I bettered only twice last season, but I was still a long way down in time, and this is exactly the sort of race which I would have expected to challenge seriously in if I was in the shape I'd like to be. If part of it is about the heat then another few weeks will help that a fair bit.