NOC Long Distance
The first three controls went fine. Then I lost three minutes on the fourth control. Fourth control was also bad at the IOC. Hmmm. Anyway, took a bad route choice and then went to the fifth on the way, accidentally. Meant I had a fast split, 3 seconds off fastest, to the fifth control. Sixth was longer and I did it v well, less than 20% down. 7th, wasn't good the first couple of hundred metres of the leg. 8 made a balls, went down the wrong side of a spur, 1:20 lost. 9 and 10 were shaky but fine. Ate a wine gum going in to the drinks station, then lost the plot completely. GPS was able to say
where I lost 13 minutes.
Oops.
That made the rest of the race really painful. I made another couple of mistakes (smaller) just after, then slapped myself and said "No more f***ing mistakes", which seemed to work.
Last one out of the forest by two or three minutes. Sad.
Hopefully part of this crap performance is due to the sore throat the week before... but I can't really blame it for me being shit. Physically I felt well tired from the eighth control onwards.