The day started overcast and windy with rain threatening, not good or an area right on the coast. The assembly area looked out over the dunes towards the end of all courses and whilst doing a commentary stint before my course I saw many competitors milling around in the ‘zoo’ of controls, losing precious time at the end of their runs.
After getting carried away and spending too long in the commentary van I had a mad 5 minutes getting changed and putting in contact lenses before legging it to the start with just 2 minutes to spare before my allotted start time.
After a quick blast across a manicured army firing range we were out onto the dunes proper and a baptism of fire on this complex terrain, a long leg right across the map. I was going OK, legs a little stiff after the sprint of the day before, but then lost contact with the map. I carried on deciding I would relocate when I got near the sea. However, I relocated on the wrong feature and I carried on in a classic parallel error. Arriving at what I thought was the dune I wanted I thrashed around for a couple of minutes before finally sorting out the 5m contour interval in my head and that I was some 150m off to the east. Looking at the splits browser graphs all the top 6 except Roger Goddard made mistakes on number one, showing that even after a big error you need to keep your head and are not automatically out of the race.
The dunes here were much more physical than those we are used to in the UK mainland such as Penhale or Merthyr Mawr, not only the use of 5 m contours indicating the bigger hills but the vegetation was much harder to make progress through.
As I wound my way round the dunes I found myself being pushed left and right off course by the undergrowth, I’m not sure if it was that bad or whether I just didn’t have by brave goggles on but I took a couple of roundabout routes at times to avoid it. The middle part of the course went out into some faster running terrain, particularly number 11 through 17, where we even got to run on an army golf course! The clever course planning mid leg on the way to 18 threw us back into the complex dune structures. I deliberately reigned in the speed but still wobbled on the way in.
By now my legs were starting to protest. I might have the heart and lungs to run a classic distance orienteering race but one 25 minute training run a week is not really enough preparation. The technical and physical difficulty did not let up, and even the last control to the finish was uphill and into the wind.
I was shattered and thought perhaps I had bitten off more than I could chew in running M35L but was pleasantly surprised by the results to find I was 5th, and 3rd Brit.
Day 3 of the JK moves to open hillsides that have never been my strength, particularly now my foot, post operation, does not enjoy contouring across steep slopes but the views will be fantastic and judging by the climb we should be going up and down and not across too much!