11/11/2011

Three day weekend and what better way to spend it than Orienteering. After a brief shuffle around and some lazing about on our day off we headed down south for some orienteering. We made a short detour on friday afternoon to Shaplin Falls up by Mt Sommers then headed to a DoC camp site at Pioneer Park… pretty much in the middle of nowhere somewhere between Fairlie and Geraldine. It was a cool little place to camp out the night and it was only a twenty min drive the next day to the event at Craigmore.

A front rolled through in the night, but by the time it came time to run it wasnt too wet, still a little cold though. Craigmore had not been run on since 2005 and it was just how I remember, a really cool map that appears to be easy and flat but its covered in massive sinkholes. I had a good run making minimal mistakes and running a little scared that Chris Forne might turn up… anyway as it turns out he didn’t and the closest anyone came to my time was Carsten who was about 12mins back.

In a sink hole just near the start area a string course was set up with Sport Ident. There was a competition with a bit of a crowd to see who could get around the fastest. As I waited to the end a little bit and I had by that stage won the long red there was a big crowd gathered to watch me see if I could beat the fastest time. I ran pretty quick but as I came into the finish I was being counted down and I finished 1 second behind Alistair Richardson, to tie with Josh Campbell for 2nd.

After the race and a quick stop in Glenavy for one of the biggest ice creams I have ever seen we headed up to Dansey’s Pass camping ground for the night.

The next morning it was time for DOC’s OY on the Humpy Bumpy map. Carsten has never won on his own map and I wasnt about to let him. I thought my run on Craigmore was good but this race I lead right from the first control…although I made one big mistake near the end and a few small ones after that as I was running too fast to try to make time back up…. But it was a cool map and a cool course and I won by about 3mins this time….

The trip back to Christchurch called for another stop into Glenavy for a Milkshake this time…not quite as massive as their Ice Creams!