Run race ((orienteering)) 40:00 [4] *** 4.9 km (8:10 / km) +170m 6:57 / km
spiked:12/12c
At times when my mind was wandering in school geography classes it would sometimes turn to the ACT 1:100000 topographic map on the classroom wall. The shape of the ACT is such that a rectangular sheet which incorporates all of the ACT also incorporates a fair bit of country outside the ACT, especially to the south-east, and I'd always been fascinated by the south-eastern corner of it, remote country well off the beaten track which we only ever went to once (exiting the 1987 Australian Relays through Jerangle, on the way to Cooma and Jindabyne where we were next headed) - contours with four-digit numbers on them, and stretches of bush in the middle of nowhere.
I'm not sure if Slap Up Creek quite makes it onto the ACT 1:100000 - Jerangle certainly does - but it's at the very least close to it. It promised to be, and was, a nice area, and one that I was very much looking forward to prior to last weekend. By midweek I knew the best I could hope for might be to jog around the course, and yesterday suggested that even that was going to be a struggle, especially as I suspected the ribs would give me more grief with the extra jolting in terrain. Nevertheless, I thought I'd at least start, trying to tell myself that if Dermott Brereton could play two hours of a Grand Final with broken ribs then I could orienteer for a similar length of time with bruised ones. (Perhaps a crucial difference is that orienteering has no equivalent of resting in the forward pocket).
For the first four controls, in country which was either open or relatively flat or both, I was functioning sort of OK, although not able to stretch out, and with a feeling somewhat like a permanent stitch. Started to struggle much more on the steeper slope across to 5. The configuration of the course made 5 a bit of a decision point, but I thought I'd at least see if there was some improvement on the flatter first half of 5-6. There wasn't, and I decided that that was going to be that. 20-25 was a logical set of controls to get on the way home (and one consolation was that I did spike all of the controls I did get), but it was very slow going by then - as demonstrated by the various people (mostly considerably older than me) who blew me away downhill in the open. Crossing fences was also a major problem as I couldn't bend properly.
This year I've been drifting towards the decision that this will be my last year running elite at championship level as I've become uncompetitive at that level, but this is not the note I want to go out on (and the M40 field next year in WA probably won't have many other than the locals), so maybe I'll give it one last shot? Depends a lot on what sort of summer I can put together.
Definitely a well-run event on a nice area, and the Jerangle Public School produced the second-best food item I've eaten at post-event catering (behind only the time I ran a course in Italy which finished outside a mountain restaurant).