Run race ((orienteering)) 21:15 [4] *** 2.7 km (7:52 / km) +50m 7:12 / km
spiked:14/16c
Sprint relay at Stromlo, in the bush (most of the interesting bits around the main erosion gully). The idea here was supposed to be one person from each of the four elite classes, but due to a bloke surplus I was deemed to be a junior girl for the purposes of today - part of a lineup of Marina, Ewan Barnett and Peter Bray.
The other three all had decent runs and I went out in third together with Phoebe Dent, about 3 minutes down on Ella Johnson and 2 on Zac Needham, and well ahead of anyone else. Zac was the one out of these I thought could be a potential threat because he's fast enough to stick with me if we had a common split (and do me in the sprint), but I never saw him (turned out I went through him early). Decided to stay out of the gully as much as I could and go round the tops; went in a bit early on 3 but didn't lose much time, and saw Ella there so knew I was in a good position. Dropped 15 seconds or so coming into 5 a bit wide, but otherwise pretty clean and knew I was well clear at the spectator control. From there it was just a case of not doing anything stupid.
Trying to remember the last time I've brought a team home to win a relay - I normally run second leg (including in all five of our M21 Australian Relays wins). Maybe a Victorian club relays in the mid-1990s? Looking at the results we won because we were one of only a couple of teams to put four good legs together, and also because I was running out of my division a bit - the best junior girls are faster than me on urban sprints these days (as Tara, Lanita, Anna and Caroline demonstrated in the afternoon), but none of them got within three minutes on a moderately technical forest course. Pretty happy with this as a run, though, and nice to be navigating properly in the bush again.