On the road again … we’ve taken a short break to take part in Sprint Canberra, five races in four days in the nation’s capital. We made an unaccustomed early start, arriving early enough to settle in to our home for the next few days. We were greeted by our “host”, Miss Tiger Lily, who performed happy cat contortions for her new friends.

Race 1 was the same day and we were glad of the chance to stretch our legs beforehand. The venue was CIT Bruce, pretty much on the opposite side of town. We set the satnav and followed the convoluted instructions. A missed freeway exit saw us taking a long detour. I am much more comfortable with a proper map in front of me where I can see the bigger picture, rather than blindly following a voice in a box (no matter how beguiling).

The campus had an adjoining nature reserve, and the first 6 controls were on tiny termite mounds in the bush. They were all bingo controls requiring compass bearing and hope. I took this section slowly and hit them all ok. From there it was into the campus and finally into proper sprint mode. There are certain benefits to having ones partner run an hour before you on the same course, and Ian warned me about locked gates which were hard to see on the map. I almost fell for it, running round the outside of the fence to no 9, and swinging inside at the last minute – phew! The second half was all in buildings but pretty straightforward, with the controls on obvious features. I made a sizeable error on a very short leg where I just overran, and grew tired at the end. My slow start put me at the end of the results. Ian got caught out by the fence which saw him lose quite a lot of time, finishing 18^th out of about 40 runners.

Next day we had a free morning, so headed to the War Memorial to see the new WW1 exhibit, which was excellent. The little portrait photos scattered throughout told very personal stories. The most striking display was the slide show of Frank Hurley’s candid and confronting photographs. Unlike the propaganda, his pictures told it exactly as it was. You could almost feel the mud of Flanders sucking you down. As we exited we saw an amazing sculpture, honouring those who have died in Afghanistan. It is a row of folded flags, each with a poppy laid on top, and each representing one person. The sculpted flags look like soft fabric but they are actually marble – incredible and beautiful.

Race 2, later that evening, was in the same vicinity, at Radford College. This time we carefully took the proper exit, but were bemused to discover that apparently OACT does not own any directional signs! The directions in the program were minimalist and assumed you knew where things were, and we had to read between the lines to figure out where the car parking was.

It was even hotter than the previous day, and humid as well. The program advised to wear leg cover but it was way too hot so we risked getting scratched legs. As it turned out we were only in forest for 2 very short legs. Similarly to race 1, they sent us straight into scrappy bushland before bringing us through a fence and into the college proper.

This one was a step up in complexity with a larger built area, and a myriad of stairs. The map scale was 1:3000 which caught me out – everything kept coming up faster than expected and most of my small errors were just overrunning. I made a poor route choice to no 8, and had to really slow down for the tricky legs at the end. It was great fun despite the heat.

Ian had a blinder and finished 6^th.  He started carefully and worked his way into it, gradually moving up the placings as he went. He was second on a few legs, and was very happy to have a fast and consistent run. As for me, I was happy to have one or two names below mine.  Two down, three to go.