Training Log Archive: O-ing

Mulga Valley, Easter Day 3, M55, 5th. Not the usual Day 3 fade-out, but did make an actual map reading mistake. This came at 5. Had been a bit slow at 4 (should have kept further left (-10 secs), but thought I should keep the same height out of the saddle to the pit at 5. No, I had to climb a contour. Overshot and lost about 1:40. Bad direction then to 6 and went into the wrong gully (-10 secs, the one with the boulder thankfully, to the west). 7 was needlessly slow through the creek detail.
8 deserves its own paragraph. A small feature in flat terrain - needs a good compass bearing. Took one I thought from 7. When I crossed the creek at halfway I was so far left that I took a while to actually locate myself - I couldn't believe I had drifted 120m off line on a 250m "accurate" bearing. So abandoned the compass and went in the vague direction of the big creek and ran straight to it. Could have been very ugly had I continued on the "accurate" bearing. GPS shows a very straight line for the early section, and it looks like the right angle (in True Grid - magnetic declination +7.9 degrees, so maybe 8 degrees out).
Slow once back in the creek; climbed up and down needlessly at 13 (-30 secs) and ran around too far at 15 (-30 secs) where fatigue definitely set in. So around about 3:30 again lost. Still way behind K/L (39, 41).

Shadowing Aoife on the VE.

Keeping warm in the ice cold wind.

Day 3 Course 9 - Splits