orienteering race (NOL long Dhuwugarra) 1:43:32 [4] 9.9 km (10:27 / km) +345m 8:54 / km
shoes: Inov8 ORoc 280
It was great not to have to drive 90 min from Bathurst this morning, and I'd slept ok once I had doubled up the solo blanket and put tomorrow's orienteering socks on (toes nearly froze when I had to take socks off again to tape ankles at the event). Leisurely breakfast in the hotel dining room was punctuated by seeing competitors run past the window; so, not only is the arena less than 1km away again, the courses go through the town! And indeed, later on in the long course my chosen route took me right past the Royal Hotel...
There were some decent route choice legs although the control sites themselves were mostly straightforward, which was a good thing because at 1:15 000 I often had to go by the control description, being completely unable to read the feature on the map. Didn't help that I twice got a bush in my eye and vision was distinctly blurry (is that an oxymoron?). I was right about not seeing any other W21s out there; it's difficult to push as hard when you're on your own :( Didn't slack off too much though - most of my time losses relate to getting in & out of steep erosion gullies, which is definitely not my forte and I was grateful for Friday night's rain making them less shaly.
Sure, I'd like to have been 5-10 min faster, but am reasonably happy with this weekend's runs given that my hamstring took from September to February to properly come good. And I was finding it hard to justify the expense of flying to Sydney when it didn't involve visiting in-laws, but can see now that I really benefited from having the weekend as a mental circuit-breaker without worrying about either work or family.