Australian Relay Championships
Running 2nd leg for the Stingers
Kas Gregory had a great first leg and came in about 20secs behind ACT's Lachlan Dow. I went out chasing Olle Poland and saw him looking for #1. Problem was I couldn't find mine either and stood still looking around and lost 30secs or more. I ended up catching back to Olle on the way to two through some epic creek crossings.
3 was a good challenging leg I thought. Didn't know whether to go straight through the marshes, head right through the felled areas or further right to the track. Also the final dark green marsh made the route into the circle more complicated. I ended up going relatively straight and the marshes weren't too bad. As I punched I saw Olle coming in from the other direction only about 30m away.
I felt pretty tired running up to 4 and Olle caught up. I let him lead through the marsh to 5 and predicted the split control. Unfortunately mine (#247) was quite a bit longer and Olle was way out of sight. Then I ran a bad 6th leg, going through a saddle in the wrong place and dropped down to the marsh on the left too early. This made for a slow rocky approach to the control and lost 48 secs here. I was cautious to 7, but had trouble finding the creek crossing to 8, i'm sure I wasn't the only one though.
8-13 all went smoothly though I wasn't sure if I was in front or behind as I went through the spectator area. Leg 14 looked tricky as you ran through a lot of rock to get there but the control site in the gully was actually very easy. On the way to 15 I finally saw Olle again and we were then together. I let him lead down to 16 trying to take it carefully, but we both over ran it. I was infront to 17 but again took it carefully. Out of 17 I saw a streamer to my left and headed down to what was NOT the correct crossing point. In fact there was a washed out foot bridge apparently used for the 1992 World Masters. But I got accross easy enough and passed Olle as I went to my 18 and he was heading to a split.
I got to the finish with only 30-45sec lead for Josh which was a bit disappointing. The plan was for me to ran away from the competition on Leg 2 and have a good lead, but Olle ran above expectations and I ran below. Craney and Josh had a bit of a battle but ACT ended up in front by 2mins. It would have been interesting if I ran last leg, as Craney and I ran almost the same time on the same split (about 10secs appart if you account for the changeover time). I was a bit disappointed I couldn't run faster today. Probably getting older means you don't back up after the long champs? Nah probably just not fit enough at the moment. And maybe running a bit conservatively, but that was probably wise since the courses were quite technical.
Next year Stingers, next year.
I have video footage of this race, will hopefully do something with it soon.
http://www.obasen.nu/winsplits/online/en/default.a...