orienteering race (Hill Park Dale long) 2:05:34 [4] 11.1 km (11:19 / km) +510m 9:12 / km
shoes: Inov8 Oroc spikes
*sings* I made it throoougggh the wilderness...
Actually not that bad for a long day out in the countryside. Hill Park Dale (2006 Aust Long) is approx equal parts completely open farmland and detailed rock which is quite scrappy underfoot and fairly slow going. So I tried to minimise the forest running, which was mostly avoidable in the first part of the course, and also minimise climb to save energy for later on (I wisely didn't unfold the second half of the course yet) but it meant I ended up with a hybrid route down into 5 which was time-wasting. Always very slow going downhill in the rough stuff, but didn't have much difficulty identifying the control sites - although I lost a minute in a maze of bare rock on the approach to 7 after the birthday girl hooned past me.
Took a poor route back over the hill from the north side of the map and ended up fighting through green to get down into control 12 at the bottom of a gully in the green, & was surprised to see Anna Fitzgerald appear from above, having caught up to me 8 min in total. Managed to get away from her over the next couple of controls along the ridgeline but she caught me again through the scrappy stuff on the west-facing slope and so we found ourselves staggering up the steeeep hill from 17 side-by-side in complete breathless silence. I got cleaner lines than Anna on the next 2 controls, and finished a couple of minutes before her but that was still 6 minutes down. No big deal, and I definitely enjoyed myself out there although I had kind of hoped to be under 2 hours.
Anyway, this run certainly earned an ice cream, so it's a good thing that Cornettos were on sale from the event catering :)