Orienteering race (Aus Sprint Champs) 21:23 [4] 3.4 km (6:17 / km) +110m 5:25 / km
shoes: VJ Sticky
Aus Sprint Champs at Bicheno. I'd nominated for the World Cup team on the back of a couple of good sprint results this year and so I was feeling really nervous going into this race. I tried to focus it but in the end I took off out of the start too fast and blew the first control to the tune of 2min, ending my race and selection chances as quickly as I possibly could.
I hit the next 5 well but gambled on the high route on the long leg, dropped another minute, and was caught from 2min by David Brownridge. We were then caught by Josh Blatchford in the next set of rock controls (I watched Josh slipping around a bit during some rock-hopping and hoped I wasn't going to see him break his leg again). The rest of the race was pretty clean. Josh got away a bit and Bryan came through in the last few controls.
Without the two big errors, it was a pretty clean race, a few seconds lost at #10 and #21 and 1 or 2s at a few other controls. I could maybe have done a time in the low 18s, which wouldn't have been all that special anyway. Not enough preparation thanks to the hip problem.