2012 National Orienteering League Race 9 (15/04/2012)

In all of the excitement of the chasing start, I must have forgotten to start my Garmin, so no GPS track today.

The first leg was a real challenge. I was a bit lucky really. I went right before I had found a safe route. I didn't want to waste more time looking at the map with 2 guys 10 seconds behind me. It turned out ok, but I was nervous heading towards some thick black lines that actually had tunnel crossings underneath them.

I lost a little from 4-5, first crashing into Oliver Mitchell as he approached 4, and then almost running into a dead end.
I started to get it together and I had Shep and Bryan in sight on the way to 8. I did the butterfly loops well, and came out equal with the 2 of them.
From the splits, it turns out that I was leading the whole race from controls 14-17.
We then had a long leg to 18. I was on Bryan's tail, with Shep just 10m in front. I thought that I would be clever and duck around to the right, but I outsmarted myself and went one building too early. I should have just stuck with them to the end, but instead I lost 45 seconds, and any chance of a place.
From then on, I was trying to salvage 5th place by staying ahead of the Queenslanders. I lost a little on the dodgy tunnels/stairs to 21. I found the mapping to be quite unclear here, and I ended up one level too high and lost another 15 seconds.
Mark Gregson got in front of me at 23 somehow. It turns out that he missed 22. I beat him to the finish after a strong final surge, but it didn't matter as he was a DNF.

I finished comfortably 5th, but I should have been fighting for 2nd (and best race time) with Shep and Bryan, so I was a little disappointed with my run.