We missed the sprints held in Ballarat on Monday afternoon, where Meredith ran 5th (first Australian) having flown over late after sickness, and Dante came 2nd and Angus Haines 4th. Apparently it was all over very fast and extremely exciting.
On Wednesday we travelled out to some privately owned land to watch the schools individuals and then have a run ourselves.
Having driven through the farmer's yard, donated our gold coin for the use of his paddock for parking, and strolling only 100m or so, there was a great vantage point from a hill-with spectator control at the base of a large boulder, and then on the other side of the hill about a 200m clear run down hill from a control at the base of a cliff to the finish.
It was very exciting to watch our runners come through the spectator control and then head out in a short last loop.
From early on Joanna George was looking good-in 3rd place then gradually to 6th (3rd Aussie Junior girl) as some of the other junior girls came in. Abigail had to wait till late to go out and was looking good (on about the same time as her sister) at the spectator control, but then dropped a lot of time in the last short loop, relegating her to 13th at the end. It appears that the distraction of hearing the commentator mention her standing had quite an effect.
Sadly Meredith was just a bit slow, without any particularly bad errors (maybe feeling the effects of the great run the day before?)
I went out on the same course myself later in the day and took considerably longer than any of them did.
Both Dante (3rd) and Angus (5th) had great runs again, which was terrific to see.
The rest of us went out on the same courses to enjoy the lovely spur gully terrain, which is so much more like SA and gave a chance for some clear running, unlike the complicated terrain of the middle distance events on the weekend previous.
Yesterday was the schools relays in the same area with the same great assembly area and spectator control.
This is always a spectacle. Sadly a mispunch on our first leg for the junior boys put them out of a really excellent medal chance. All boys ran really well if you disregard the mispunch.
The girls came in to 3rd place behind the Tasmanian team after a longer last leg than expected-but still an excellent result for a team with two members who are new to the schools team this year.
Charlotte and Alyce held up their places well in a composite senior girls team (we only had 2 senior girls) while our senior boys came in 11th.
Trevor and I opted to rest our legs , ankles, feet and brains and headed off to Castlemaine to visit an old family friend who lives there and also the Radfords (a couple of orienteers who have moved there from Adelaide) . It as great to finally see them all in their new homes (Beri in her small white cottage with native garden just starting, and Alison and Tony with their just beginning house extensions on the hill) and will be good to picture them there in the future.
We came back past Creswick, dropping in to see Jeff and Jill's "new to them" cub camper...not a bad set up, and light to tow. Maybe food for thought when we don't want to be using our swags?
I did have a chance to catch Trev running in at the end of the fun course on Tuesday afternoon and attach a collage of this for your enjoyment.
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