Orienteering race (Hill Park Dale H3) 53:01 [4] *** 6.93 km (7:39 / km) +294m 6:19 / km
spiked:12/15c shoes: O-Roc 340
Good preparation for the week to come. Nowhere near perfect, but technically the best I've run for a long time. Felt the lack of run-thrus in the warm-up on the first leg, which was quite physical. Clean but very cautious through the next 2. Cautious again down the slope to 4. Correctly identified the cliff lined gully that I thought the control was in, but no flag. Dropped out the bottom of it, then back up the next one across before finding it. Turns out I was right and the flag was in the wrong spot. Cautious again on the short leg to 5, but came down just wide of it and ran straight past the correct rock without identifying it. Thought I'd cut my losses and bombed out to the fence to relocate and found it on the way back, frustratingly close to where I'd just come from.
Stayed in control well through to the 2nd last control. Really annoying to have a brain fade on such a short leg. Careful with direction out of the control, then thought I had seen the feature so just went straight at it, but was wrong. Not very methodical in the relocation till I had already been fluffing around for a minute or 2. Bugger.
Was a really physically tough course compared to what I was expecting. If the Easter courses were all set before the storm came through and the trees all fell over, we could be in for some pretty long days out there. 14.5 seemed pretty short for how I remembered this stuff, but it was really hard to get moving anywhere there was tree cover today.
No thoughts of retirement today :)
run warm up/down 10:00 [2] 2.0 km (5:00 / km)
shoes: O-Roc 340
Enough of a warm-up to get the achilles lose. Didn't feel any ill effects drom last night until I tried to run uphill to the start triangle :(. Ran a lap of the paddock, then picked up an old Umuna map from the car to get my eye into map reading before I started, but Craig joined me and gave me a lap full of good advice, so I only looked at about 4 legs. Still think I'm pretty likely to warm up with a map next weekend. Just helps get the right routines to the forefront of my easily-distracted brain.