Run race ((orienteering)) 1:26:58 [3] *** 7.8 km (11:09 / km) +315m 9:17 / km
spiked:16/20c
Kangaroo Crossing has been pretty kind to me over the years (including winning a World Cup trial there in 2000); perhaps I instinctively understand the internal logic of the terrain. It worked again today with probably my best result since the 2017 nationals.
Not terribly fast through the early controls, which were mostly downhill, and perhaps went a bit further right than I needed to on 2, but was hitting them nicely, and by the time of reaching the scarily-downhill-into-low-vis-vagueness 5, I was beginning to think that today was not just about survival, there was a decent chance of getting a result. Started to wobble a bit in mid-course on 8, 9 and 10, but probably only dropped a maximum of 15 seconds on each, and was further encouraged by seeing Andy, who started 4 minutes ahead, coming out of 11 (turned out he'd made a big mistake on 4 and then gone back through me on 9). 12 was a long leg but less rugged than it looked at first glance; walking the significant hills, as was the case all day, but running the rest.
I haven't been beyond 70 minutes in training all year, so it wasn't too surprising, on a warm day, that I started to feel as if I was hitting the wall around 12. By then, there were only three more shortish uphill legs to go then the rest was downhill. Didn't run much of 13/14/15, but didn't fall apart and was able to make a reasonable fist of the final downhill section (although the two-contour climb across the creek into 19 was as much of a test as I could handle).
Ended up 4th, at the head of a fairly close bunch but 90 seconds behind Scott in 3rd (just like in M12 at the 1982 nationals). Bruce blitzed the field with 70 (but 16 minutes is still closer than I was last weekend, on a longer course), Carsten did 77. Was thinking so near and yet so far, but I'd forgotten that Carsten isn't (yet) officially a Kiwi until I got called up at the presentations for 3rd Oceania.
Not especially energetic in the rest of the day - at least there were sufficient control collectors that my services weren't required (except to transport some of the stands, and some of the rubbish - my car will smell interesting by this time tomorrow - back to Melbourne). Probably not too many sports where you'd see the national president collecting money at the entrance to the car park and then a world champion pointing people to their parking spots.