Tas Sprint Champs

When I woke up this morning I was reigning Tasmanian Sprint Orienteering Champion (Open Women's Division)*. In fact I had been reigning since 2010 when I was reasonably fit and managed to hold off some hot competition in a tight race near St Virgils College.  In 2011 and 2012 I held on to my title as the competition wasn't quite as strong - which was fortunate for me as I wasn't really doing much training - nethertheless as Clare's dad would say, you can only beat those who show up.

Anyway - I'd been really looking forward to today's race - not only was I up against a new up-and-coming junior (Anna D) who had been consistently beating me for speed at the Saturday Afternoon Series, I was also up against my old buddy Clare, who I've been racing on-and-off since we were juniors and who is also a fair bit faster than me.  The start draw was unfortunately not in my favour, first me, then one minute behind was Anna, then one minute behind was Clare.  Realistically Clare could easily beat me by 2 minutes in a 2.6 k course so I expected the most likely outcome was that her and Anna would catch me somewhere near the finish.

Consequently my race plan was to go as fast as I could out of the start to try to postpone the inevitable.  I knew if the chasers could catch up enough to see me run into the control sites, it would all be over as I'd never get away.

So keeping to the plan I raced down the beach towards the first control, ducking into the dunes to punch it as fast as I could then I contined along the beach to the rocks at the end for the 2nd control. Leaving the 3rd control I crossed paths with Anna who was heading into the control area but I recon I was still a minute ahead of her at that point. That gave me the motivation to keep pushing hard and navigating as cleanly as possible through some tricky tracks and open areas around the dunes. By the long leg halfway through the course I had caught a couple of other juniors who had started a few minutes in front of me. From there it was a matter of navigating cleanly through the 6 or so controls amongst the granite rocks on the way back to the finish.  I didn't get a chance to look behind me but I was pretty happy to be still by myself (no Clare or Anna breathing down my neck, or leaving me behind), so after punching the last control I pushed on though to the finish - pretty darn happy with my run. When I stopped running I had an overwhelming urge to spew so I sat down which gave me the opportunity to see when Clare and Anna crossed the line. Amazingly, Anna came in 2 minutes after me, and Clare was a minute or two after that.  Woohoo! I know I wouldn't have beaten either of them due to my speed so they had obviously had some navigational errors along the way.  

After I'd recovered I went over to the finish tent to download my race information and get my official time. Whereupon I was shocked and horrified to discover I'd mispunched control number 1 (i.e. so what I assumed was my first control was not my first control at all). Aaggrh! I checked all the other control numbers religiously, but not the first one! I was in too much of a hurry!   Thus I was disqualified, Anna won, and Clare was second.   Bugger!!  I rarely mis-punch as I almost always check the control number matches the one on my control description sheet - I'm so cross with myself for getting it wrong today.  Of course it's not right to say if I had checked I would have won, because if I had checked the number of the control I was about to punch I would have realised it was wrong and I still would've needed to find the correct one - there's no knowing whether that would have taken me 30 seconds or 2 minutes, and even thirty seconds would have had Anna right onto me. Talking to Anna and Clare after the race they both said they had trouble with that control and lost a bit of time (but of course ultimately punched it).  Clare also lost at least 90 seconds on a dodgy route choice on the long leg - the sort where she'd normally gain at least a minute, she instead lost a minute and a half - which explains why I didn't see her near the end.

While we were playing at the beach after the event I went to have a look at the two controls: 

They were pretty close - had I read my clue description I would have known instantly that the control I punched next to a sand-cliff obviously wasn't the high-point I was looking for.  Dang. I'm sure there are some common expressions to describe what I have learnt by today's experience though.. For example - 'More Speed Less Haste'.. and perhaps  'Fools Rush In'..  and of course the less common but still useful.. 'Check Your Control Descriptions You Dork.

*Sprint Orienteering is where the distances are relatively short - my race today was 2.6k. They are often held in semi urban areas.