Australian middle distance champs-Sunday 27th September

I'm writing this on Monday because we came home yesterday and were very very lazy- blog included. We were feeling every bit of our lack of fitness and lack of training after two days of challenging courses. They may have been only middle distance courses, but they have required more mind power and more fitness than we really had to offer (and have consequently been super enjoyable). As I said to someone yesterday-if I could spend every day of the rest of my life doing a course on these maps I would still have a lot to learn..Maybe I'm a slow learner, but they continue to give a challenge and it  is so different every time. There were certainly a few lessons to be had in today.

There were also some joys.  Seeing Joanna George win her course (after Abigail won the day before) was fantastic. Also seeing Max Grivell come 3rd and Jack Marshall come 5th in the M 12 was terrific. Although all of these are now part of the junior arrows, and not the darts I still consider them special and also see their great potential for future orienteering achievements. Eliza Grivell,  Emily Marshall and Ben Marshall also did really well, and apparently so did Jemima Lloyd (although we hadn't even known she was coming to the champs, and didn't see her-just saw the result later. )

Max came third!

A number of SA adults also did well-Adrian and Robin Uppill, Andrew Slattery, Tyson, Fern, and Olivia come to mind.

Trevor and I did not have outstanding results and didn't expect to. (36th out of 43 and 22nd out of 35 respectively) on a day which favored good navigators. It only took one error wasting a few minutes to see many a good orienteer dropping down the results list and finishing the day wondering why on earth they did what they did. 

We stayed till the end and despite this neither Trev or I had the sense to go and reclaim  our maps (which were handed in as we finished as the last start had not yet been completed).  Thus we returned home empty handed. I was lucky that Al is a M 60 and did the same course as I did, so I have a photo of his map to work my way through,  but Trev will have to wait till we get them back to go through his course again.  We sat in the spa last night  sipping our gin squash and talking our way through our course as best we could, but it wasn't as good as being able to see the map.

Despite my good intentions I failed to plan good attack points to all of my controls and particularly failed in good execution at number 10.  Debrief to follow. 

We had plenty of time to check out the final control for the day before Trev set out for his start. We were unsure how it would be mapped. Maybe as a mound, a pit or an earth bank in a u shape?

 In the end the map looked like this:

My whole map looked like this: ( thanks Zita)

From 9-10 I decided to take the road rather than having to cross through green and across the river. If I had done it well it could have worked well but...

First,  I got a bit confused and started thinking I was heading for 11 instead of 10.  Luckily I figured it out before I actually wasted any time.

This is what I think I ended up doing. In the middle it was really slow as I was confused and trying to figure it out.

So I got almost to the track bend that I was planning to use as my attack point for 11  before I realised that  should be heading for 10, not 11. My mind was dehydrating and showing it and the recent hill climb had not helped the matter.

I headed on to the dam and decided to  vaguely follow the contour along and around to the right to get to the control. I'm not sure how well I executed that part of the plan,  as I came across an injured orienteer, had a quick chat,  and headed off again (help was already on the way) in what was probably the wrong direction. I may have passed very close to my control at the time, but if I did, I certainly didn't see it. I continued on, and became aware that I was now unsure where I was. I remember seeing a creek with a control in it (not mine) and passing by the gully with steep sides shown just to the left and down from the 0 in the number 10.
At that stage I decided to do something positive and not waste any more time, and headed what I hoped was north to the track.

 As I came up to the road I was surprised to see it was such a big road and realised that it was the solid black road and the pine plantation on the other side was the edge of the map.
Looking to my right I spotted the end of the track going to the right and was mightily relieved. I headed for that, knowing that I should be able to see the drinks control on the track and confirm my position. Sure enough, there it was up ahead. I headed in again to my control and located it without difficulty.

Now why did I not continue on the track to the drinks control and use that as my attack point in the first place? I could have saved about 10 minutes and maybe ended up around 17th instead of 22nd.

Well, that is enough of a lesson for today. I hope you enjoyed my exploits.

Once I was back and changed I enjoyed taking some photos of some of the other SA orienteers and also some cute little kids out on courses being shadowed by parents. They had to be late finishers for me to catch them though,  because I had stayed out so long myself.

I particularly enjoyed taking some series of photos of runners coming into the last control.  This is my favourite.

That is orienteering in a nutshell.

Well, today is a rest day. Tomorrow we will be out there again having fun .