Taking a break

Saturday, 7 April 2018

While everyone else was either packing up yesterday's event or resting after packing up yesterday's event Clare and I snuck out for a nice walk at Binalong Bay..

Amusingly, I had a ding-dong battle with Clare today out in the forest, although it wasn't really a battle, it was more of a scrub-survivors-support-group.. let me explain...

Clare and I both started early so that we could get back ahead of the regular finishers. Clare left first and I started just over 2 minutes behind her. The first leg on our course required us to crash through some horrible thick tea tree scrub which I really didn't enjoy.  Clare had intended to take the same route but made a bit of an error, so I actually caught her up as she made a further error at the third control.  The next few legs were short, so it was hard for either of us to get away, but then we both made a mistake on a fairly simple leg, and I followed that up with a 2 minute mistake near the next control. This meant Clare was out of sight ahead of me (which I was quite relieved about) so I went about the next 3 controls on my own.  The next leg involved another thick scrubby gully crossing. There was supposed to be a taped route through it, but I couldn't find the tapes I just bashed through it, fighting and pushing through the bushes - it was nasty.  When I got to the other side I swore rather loudly with annoyance and relief.  I am not normally incited to swear while I am orienteering so it is evidence of how frustrated I was at not being able to find the marked crossing point, and instead having to bash through the cutting grass and scrub.

What I didn't realise was that Clare had attempted to cross the same gully just ahead of me. She had found, but then lost the crossing tapes, thus managing to get herself completely disoriented and stuck in the thick green scrub.  When she heard me swear she yelled out 'where are you I've got no f**king idea where I am'!

'I'm here!!' I yelled. 'Come to my voice!' - I stopped and waited for Clare to battle her way out of the scrub. It was clear she was totally disoriented as she immediately wanted to head straight back into it - she had no idea that we'd actually crossed over, she thought she'd just emerged on the same side she went in!   I set her straight on where we were and we headed off together to the next control, united in our dislike for that particular aspect of the course.  

The rest of the race was relatively uneventful. Clare pulled away a bit as we took different route choices and I was a bit slower.  Funnily enough we both ended up being amongst the fastest on the course for the day - I was 5th and Clare was 7th of the 65 competitors who ran course 4.  It was a tough day out but ultimately satisfying and it was nice to stand on the podium with Clare at the end of the 3-day competition (Clare 1st, me 2nd).