orienteering race (Gumble Pinnacles) 57:03 [3] 5.5 km (10:22 / km) +185m 8:53 / km
shoes: Inov8 ORoc 280
I think everyone was feeling a little beaten up this morning, and a bit daunted about having a similar length course to yesterday. Starting an hour and a half later, it seemed quite warm already, and my decision to carry water was a good one as the first half of the course was in open farmland and I'm glad that I was able to pour water on my head whenever my brain felt in danger of overheating. Being well aware that others would be running faster than me in the open, I just tried to keep navigation as clean as possible (not hard as it was fairly straightforward) and then slowed right down mentally as soon as I'd crossed the fence into the green forest, telling myself that it was ok to actually stop to read the map if necessary. Slowed down physically too, being faced with a wall of young native pines, but I figured they would have the same effect on everyone.
Got the first green control ok although had nearly convinced myself that I wasn't in the right gully, then turned around and saw someone punching it. Second forest control I was too high on, misread the rocks and wasted 2-3 min there, but didn't panic. The next three danger legs in the green I took very slowly, counting off every little feature out loud as I went, and being utterly delighted when I saw the flag each time. This strategy paid off, because as it turned out, nearly everyone had more trouble than me and somehow I ended up in second on the day - with Belinda 10 min clear of me, mind you. And this run was good enough to put me in 3rd overall for W45, with Susanne 5th, so I was very pleased to receive a yellow mug with Australian 3-Days 2020 on it, especially as it feels a bit unreal after the past 12 months that this year's Easter races even took place.
It's also been wonderful, if a little surreal, to have Susanne around again and for us to go orienteering together just like how it used to be; in fact the majority of the W45 field was a roll-call of our junior squad days. Sus appears to have made no mistakes at all over the entire weekend, but then again, she is the best fine navigator that I know of :)