Orienteering warm up/down (Long-O Gortalughany) 2:57:25 [3] **** 13.2 km (13:26 / km) +365m 11:48 / km
spiked:21/27c
1st of what promises to be a great series of 3 Long-Os and a return to Fermanagh.
wasn't intending to put in a fully competitive run here as my preparation was going to be far from ideal (very late night, 3hrs sleep, no porridge/muesli, 2hrs driving, early start to get back home in time for rugby!)
it was going to be tough, wet running but i was going to enjoy it, get used to the map scale & see how long it was going to be before i got caught (& maybe then get competitive!)
here's the rest of the excuses!
control 1: slow enough & cautious, thought i'd left fence at a good bearing but got dragged across towards cp3.
now confident of map & navigation had good run to 2, 3, 4 & going great into circle for 5 but then... at least 20mins wasted, fundamentally i came into it too low and it all went wrong from there.
it was then all a bit slow but sure for 6, 7, 8 (v.slow) 9, 10, 11, 12, 13 (should've started on the haribo before now) because 14 & 15 felt worse than what they really were but psychologically now heading back to car park & 2nd half of the course and the prospect of getting caught thought i'd pick it up as i ran to 16. again got to circle quick enough but wasn't counting ditches and wasted time.
17, 18, 19, 20 were grand but was now rushing as could see i was getting caught & didn't want to be overtaken by too many!! so promptly messed up 21.
finished strong & competitive (keeping close to Ruairi but hopefully pushing him in the latter stages of his run) although hit 24 instead of 23 but corrected.
great mornings run/walk! big thanks to all for putting on the event.
course length 13.2k ran/walked at least 10 mile