This is what we came for – the first of two days of Sprint orienteering, with four races (or five in the highly unlikely event that I make it into the Knockout Final.  Let’s assume that won’t be happening.)  Unfortunately the weather turned overnight, and we have two days of showers ahead of us.  The wind around our apartment tower wails like a banshee, as some of the windows are not properly sealed.  It sounds like a tempest out there but it’s actually not that bad. It’s certainly convinced me not to live in a high rise (not that I needed to be convinced).

I’m competing in “Womens Public Competitive” – with the slightly unfortunate acronym of WPC.  This is one course down from the Elite courses, and has all the good, fast age groupers – including some World Masters medallists – and me.  I only picked it because the course lengths were about right for me; I’m probably out of my league here, but I’m doing OK.  The two courses so far have been pretty technical, which I really like.  It’s been a good challenge – and my vestibular system is continuing to get better every day.

First up, we headed to Benowa State High School, an old-fashioned style campus with most of the buildings in neat rows, but some demountables to add to the confusion – and plenty of fences.  The ground was quite boggy in places.  It was complex enough for the first race of the program.

It took me longer than it should have to orientate myself at the start triangle, as I was facing three identical buildings, all at slightly different angles.  Once I got that sorted I had a pretty smooth run. The course planner squeezed a lot out of the area to make it quite tricky.  I took some conservative routes to play it safe (and avoid some of the boggier ground).  I lost time at no 11 which involved climbing up and down wet stairs, then again at no 13 where I pulled up short and started looking in the wrong place.  The rain hit as I was on my way to no 14, and I finished with wet shoes, socks and clothes. I could have saved a couple of minutes here and there, but was pretty consistent throughout.

We scrapped our plans to visit the nearby Botanic Gardens, and retreated home where we could get dry and have lunch in comfort.  Our next outing was to Griffith University – a very different style of campus with many “big box” buildings, but a lot of complexity in the gardens, stairs and ramps, and irregular shapes. It was also on more of a slope than I expected. 

There was a small grandstand which was the perfect place to spectate from.  We had fun watching the elites race, flying up the finish chute, which was almost the length of the athletics track.  I tried to imagine myself at that speed, and failed. 

Now it was our turn.  With only 11 controls over 2.4 km, there were going to be some longer “run” legs, where I would undoubtedly lose time.  None of my legs were straightforward or gratuitous – even at the end of the longer ones, you had to read your way into the circle very carefully, and be very aware of control placement so that you were on the right side of an uncrossable wall, or down the correct half of a split ramp. The planner had done a good job of forcing us to pay attention to the small details.

I took it carefully, and managed an error free run all the way to no 9.  Then I came unstuck en route to no 10, leaving the control on the wrong angle (90 degrees wrong in fact), I took the wrong road and started navigating by the wrong row of buildings. It wasn’t until I came to a halt at a dead end, when I should have been able to follow a canopy round a corner, that I realised I was wrong, wrong and wrong.  There was nothing for it but to retrace my steps and start again.  My splits tell me I lost 3 minutes, but it felt like much more.  Surprisingly I wasn’t last – half a dozen were slower than me and quite a few mispunched.  So I will take that as a “could do better” but not a disgrace.

After we’d finished, the rain closed in, and it hasn’t really let up since.  The forecast for tomorrow looks like “rinse, repeat”. Two more sprint races, and more showers to come.