orienteering race 3:11:00 [4] ***** 14.0 km (13:39 / km)
32c
Mazayes,
French Squad weekend, Andrew was gatecrashing too!!
Up early (before 6) to get the train to Clermont. Lift (thanx) from Céline&Fabrice
Orienteering here isn't getting any easier!!! There was a light layer of snow on the ground and a bit on the trees. Temperature was slightly above freezing so ended up with a lot of cold slush on my body when running. Stupid mistake on the first lost me three minutes. Must learn to read te map to the first control in technical areas...
Other than that not a horrendously eventful race until later on. Was probably 50 minutes for each of the first two loops... on the third I was getting tired :) made a mistake on the light green slope control - didn't know where in the circle I was ... so i got colder and tireder. fell onto a path from a bank on the way to the next xontrol, luckily didn't do too much damage to my knee when knocking it off a rock. four very cool ultra-technical controls made me colder and tireder... going to this loop's seventh control i fell again. Shot out my arms to cushion the fall, but my left hand hit a wee tree stump, did some damage to the little finger base knuckle which I didn't notice at the time, because I think my left arm popped out or tried pretty damn hard to pop out of its shoulder socket. Was surprised when I got up that it seemed to be in one piece.
Continued on to the 7th... thought I was navigating in fine but when I get to where i thought the control should have been there was nothing. on a small hill in a big expanse of low visibility green forest... aagghhh... so i jogged off confused and frustrated and despairingly to try to relocate. In the general direction of some details and if that failed of a path. But then I found a detail on which I could conjecture where I was and verified off of a neighbouing wee green hill in no-visibility forest which had a rock on it. Navigated carefully to where the control should have been and found the same small hill as the first time. AAgghhh. There was a bit of prebalisage (tape) on the ground so I had confirmation... french squad boys were already out taking in the controls...
Made it back to the map change - didn't know there wasa fourth loop, this one short. I had switched off my mind running back and was frozen, so headin out again was really tough. This time there wre more tracks in the snow. Following them was uinsuccessful. Finally finsihded the course, last one back... put on a dry top and went back to the accommodation Thanks to Céline and Andrew for helping carry my things. Fire at the gîte put some warmth back in me, enough to recover a little sanity...
Shoulder wasn't in the best of shape. Was surprised that it was more the hand (slightly swollen now) rather than the shoulder that disrupted my sleep most.
thierry 1:52
EPIC