We woke to light rain, for the first time this week.  The radar suggested it would clear out during the morning, but it hung around until lunchtime, dampening conditions for the Schools Relays, but not dampening their enthusiasm.  It’s always great fun watching them race so hard, hair dyed, faces painted, and barracking loudly for their team mates.  Such a great spectacle.  We arrived part way through, and positioned ourselves with a sweeping view of the finish chute, and miles of hillside beyond.  It quickly occurred to us that we were going to be out on those same hills later in the day.  Motivation was not particularly high. It looked a lot like hilly New Zealand terrain rather than Aussie forest.

A little after 12.30, we lined up for our starts.  We could choose either a mass start, or queue up for an individual start.  I opted for the mass start, figuring that the mob would have dropped me by the first control, and I’d be free to navigate on my own instead of following the pack.

I was almost correct – I hung on to the back of the pack for one control, then they dropped me at the creek crossing, which was just a bit too wide to step across easily (for me).  But I soon realised that the 130 kids who had run in the morning, had left “elephant tracks”, which made navigating pretty simple.  We started off in lovely soft pine forest which was very clean under foot, undulating through small spurs and gullies, and avoiding the small blackberry thickets.  After 3 controls we broke out into an open paddock with long grass and rabbit holes, but the kids had beaten a clear path to the two controls, making the going easy.

Next we dropped down onto a wide track, then into an area of sparse trees, watercourses, and scattered rock.  We were close to the track so it was easy enough to pick the right rock.  We had a big climb from there up to the start of the spectator leg, which was quite brutal.  Even more so for the kids, who had to keep face and run the whole way up while being urged on by the spectators.  It was a huge long run through (which I walked through).  Then we dropped down through another lovely piece of pine forest, into a series of spurs and watercourses, some quite steep to cross, but nothing difficult to navigate.  A final climb up to a ridge, then back into the long finish chute which I felt obliged to “run”.  My time was at the bottom end, but at just over an hour I wasn’t unhappy – it was a significant improvement on Tuesday’s performance, and actually very enjoyable.

Tomorrow is a well earned rest day, before the finale of the Long Distance Champs.