Running warm up/down 20:00 [2] 1.5 km (13:20 / km)
shoes: Inov8 Xtalon 2015
To the start then drills/strides/stretching/etc. The most placid cows ever on the route to the start - seemed remarkably tolerant of all the strangely clad people weaving between them to warm up!
Orienteering race 54:16 [5] 9.67 km (5:37 / km) +218m 5:03 / km
shoes: Inov8 Xtalon 2015
Compass Sport Cup Final, Helsington Barrows
Short Brown M40+ / M20-
15th place (and 6th FVO) - rather more importantly, FVO VICTORY IN THE CUP!!
Pushed as hard as I could (legs and particularly calves feeling very battered now, Monday morning).
But two notable mistakes costing about 2mins total
- a bit over a minute dropped at #13 (despite checking twice I still read the ring index contour to the right of the line as a hilltop not a hole, ended up stood still and lost quite far left from where I should be)
- really pushing to #16 as knew not far to go and largely downhill, but stayed on trod too long and was further left than I thought, mis-identified boulder and cut over wrong hill into wrong re-entrant too far south and east. Splits say I lost less than a minute but it felt like a lot at the time.
Also
- hesitant down to #8, not in full control
- wayward from crossing point down to #11, bounced off track to the left
- too far left for pre-spectator at #18
Probably another 45sec gone begging across those.
James L 45 (on the Trophy), Marcus 46, Dave G 48, Ben and Roger 50, Jase 53.
So not a great run or result but still decent, another minute quicker to beat Martin Ward and John Duckworth would have been preferable! But good enough to damage the points of all other clubs :)
A great day out with an awesome club spirit and atmosphere really showing through - pretty much everyone in the club was there including some 'occasional' orienteers scoring some major points for us, and FVO people on the run-in were getting much noisier support than those from other clubs. That support and feeling part of a team is important!
It is great to have a goal to aim for and even better to successfully hit that goal - it was fantastic to see how delighted everyone was to be part of our whole team commitment to make the effort and take on the bigger clubs, and how delighted they also were that it paid off just as we had hoped :)