Training Log Archive: Brooner

Event: The Goanna - Beacon Hill
 

GOanna race at Beacon Hill. Love head to head racing, love this format for the tactics, but my orienteering was atrocious.



Went off hard to have open trails ahead of me but was too busy reading ahead trying to figure out controls to drop & stayed on the road too long before heading through the bush to 1b which I punched with James. Up to 2 was fine but messed around trying to cut through to 3 and once we hit the track think we ran past it - decided to drop it then proceeded to overshoot 4 so ended up behind the pack.

Decided here to go maverick road route to 5 which paid off, punching with Greg & Undy, then went awol when leading to 6 so I was with the pack again. Snuck by early enroute to 7 so they were all stuck behind on the stupidly slow "track" (should have skipped & gone for 8a), then I was with Toby & Undy through 8 - 10 but took off to 11, however I missed on 12 so was with Toby again leaving here and we both skipped 13.

Then it all went even more to shit. Hit the first scatter control (A) perfectly, but read the stand code rather than the SI unit code and thought it was the wrong one (despite knowing they were different, from previous controls & race info), so did a 2 minute lap of the nearby tracks before ending up back there again and figuring out I was an idiot. Pretty much gave up at this point, and proceeded to drop another 90s on the other scatter controls (looped past B & D) so was in a big boo & was just jogging it into the finish from there.

Saw Undy leaving the road to 14/15 when I turned the corner, and Toby exciting 14 on my way in towards it, so knew they were clear. Had originally wanted to skip 14, but managed to hit it ok, slow to 15, then ok through 16 & 17, exciting to the east and down the fence to the last control. Upon leaving that, I see Undy looking confused and tell him where it is, then Toby nearby too, and as I head out to the field I see Greg ahead and think it must be between us for the win so put in some effort - except he turns in the opposite direction from the finish still looking for the last control... So I jog in to the finish, and from nowhere Toby comes charging in and I punch just ahead of him, with Undy just behind. Seems they all blew a good 3-4 minutes on the final control, where the map was dodgy if you came via the track.

TL, DR: Pretty hilariously bad performance somehow ended up in a win (though a tie on paper).

C • That finish sounds comedy 4

Squeezing in some sunshine and a quick couple of hill efforts in flat rock between meetings, annoyingly got back to find it cancelled.

Tired legs from yesterday, but lunchtime stretches & roller plus lack of opportunity later this week felt I should give MNT a crack. 4/3/3/2/2/2 with 60s recovery - skipped the final 4x1 as a few things were niggling and I thought that'd be pushing it. Slower than previous weeks (around 3:30, last one 3:17), but to be expected.