The last two races were definitely the most interesting, challenging and fun.  Race 4 was at a small Steiner school, where the buildings were all very irregular shapes, with tiny narrow alleyways in between.  Some of them met in a kind of hexagon, which was reminiscent of both Venice and the Vortex of Doom.  The map scale was 1:2000 so the detail was intense and the features came at you thick and fast.  My ankle was still quite sore but I was ok to shuffle-run on the flat bits, while slowing to a walk on anything “off road”.

It all went wrong very quickly, when I couldnt quite make anything match right from the start.  I stood bemused for a while, before spotting a control close by that I reckoned was my no 6 – at least it would give me a pointer in the right direction.  Yes it did.  I next used a large roundabout, which became a regular feature of my course – I kept ending up in it despite every effort to the contrary.  Without going into details, let’s just say that mistakes were numerous, and by the end of 22 controls, my brain was quite fried.  Along with my slow pace, the results weren’t too pretty.  The only thing I didnt enjoy was the second long lap of the top part of the school – it did nothing but add distance, while I would have preferred more time in the complex central section.  I was so bamboozled by the Hexagon of Horror, that afterwards I went for a reconnaissance walk just to make sense of it.

Before we knew it, we were waking up to our final day, and it was off to ANU.  This was also the final map in 2016, and I remembered it fondly as being really tricky – full of little residential cottages surrounded by retaining walls, paths criss crossing everywhere, and more nooks and crannies to hide controls in than you can imagine.  Nothing had changed …  I picked up the map and reeled at the array of colour and detail.  Focus! I told myself.  An uphill start gave me the chance to gather my thoughts, and I navigated very cleanly to the first 7 controls.  But suddenly I found myself not recognising anything, and I came to a dead halt.  It took quite some time to work it out and get back on track; a costly error.

I met Pete at no 8, and cursed myself, knowing he had started a couple of minutes behind me.  I headed to no 9, but Pete went another way, and I decided I was wrong and turned to follow.  Turns out he was wrong … we both backtracked the way I’d gone originally.  Grrr.  More time lost.  After that we ticktacked round the rest of the course, taking it in turns to lead.  Between us we made quite a few small errors but nothing major.  I hit the final control first and tried desperately to maintain my tiny lead in the chute, but to no avail – Pete’s longer reach got him across the line a nanosecond ahead!

Then it was all over.  A fantastic weekend of top sprinting.  Can’t wait for March and the Melbourne Sprint Weekend!

PS I can confirm the absence of chocolate ice cream in the freezer.