Training Log Archive: GM

Oceania Long distance champs at Ngatawhai. A very disappointing day. The area was physical but limited and the courses were the same. The assembly area was poor and lacked any atmosphere. The day was hot and the only shade was on some very steep banks under some trees. The course was so-so but had about 1km of dead running at the end to get back to the finish. And to top it off my orienteering was crap. Geoff was the run away winner nearly 20mins in front of me, but 3rd place was less than 10min away and I easily stuffed up that amount of time.

Good to 1 but then got thrown a bit by the scale of 1:15,000 so under ran the next leg and got onto the wrong ridge ie. too early. Should have been reading my map better. Good through the next couple of controls and took the right hand route on the long leg to 5. Pleased with my nav and thought the route choice was good - GL went the same way. Ted caught me at 5 but he did say I lead him into the control :) Missed 6 by going too far right so lost a minute. Then there was control 8, a distinctive tree in the green. I must have been standing <10m from the control and still couldn't see the tree/flag. Hunted around in there playing bingo and eventually stumbled across it. I contoured out through the green to keep my height to 9 but didn't see the track route beside the fence lower down so lost some time. Should have taken the track to the far left going to 10 to avoid a couple of the green gullies I scrambled through, but then really lost the plot when I ran past 10 and was heading for 11 then when I realised I made a parallel error so lost a lot of time back tracking - at least I proved that the uncrossable cliff below the control wasn't. GL picked me up at this point but I had a better route to 11 and punched just ahead. Then the nav was over and it was just the slog to the finish.

Nice long jog along the road to the start, then about 10 mins around the start area to calm my nerves.

Long Champs - 5 - Splits