Orienteering 1:09:49 [4]
shoes: Jalas
Harvester - Longmoor
Bok first leg A1/2
Started fine, obviously heavily gaffled, first to first.
Small miss at #3, lots of people around I shouldn't be seeing.
#7, went through chest deep bracken ( my chest). To find CUOC runner roughly where it should be. Had pack of 3 on me. Two continue with determination. Either they've punched it , or think we're in the wrong place. Keep on going, hit fence, back bashing round nonexistent track. Back too same place - grid search lads - one of the boys finds it quite quickly. The 2 runners had punched it, me being 5m to left, other 5m to right. hadn't said anything - maybe they didn't know how bingo this control was 3.20s.
8/9/10 sweet. See Neil going into 11, that is good. Slightly unsure whether I'm on the correct, track, there is my control, great! Slow to 12, tracks everywhere, some mapped, some not. Get there eventually. On exiting feel a branch go into my senstive parts, think will break soon.... but doesn't. I come to a stop, to untangle a large flexible waratah, under a reasonble amount of pain. If only i was a couple of inches taller. Can't conentrate on the exit as a result and fluff it.
See Neil/Tom/Syo near my 13 get all excited, but hold on they're heading in different direction. Head to my control, but a bit flustered, miss it. Out to other side, must've been too far right. Head to open land, back through, miss it again - damn it. Start thinking maybe i'm on wrong block, head down to track junction, looks correct. straigth through rough open, there's the basterd. (3.40s).
Trying to push now. 19 looks weired. think about going round or straight decide on straight - but it was really shite, pop out at the top anyway (you can't see the track due to the line). Lose 1.20 s somewhat compensated by knowing how to exit.
Through to finish.
Would've been nice too keep calm when I saw others, but hey.
didn't feel good throughout, hence my running was quite poor, need to be even more conservative on what I eat next time.
Job done. solid run, 8.20 of mistakes of which 3.20 were not my fault.
Good platform for remainder of race, with some long (#1) and bullshit (#7) gaffles cleared out. +7.40 down so still at the back of where I needed to be :-)
really fun harvester - with some great close racing, both on first leg, and throughout between the top 5 teams.