Well today was the important WRE day. Same area was yesterday but starting on the other side of the road and so had a marked road crossing as part of the spectator section in the arena.
Wasn't feeling super fresh this morning, but was happy enough on my jog to the start and warming up. Thought I got myself calmed down and ready to go in the start blocks and was feeling confident and in control heading off.
Well that lasted for probably 2 minutes. Think I was about half way to the control and then Poof nothing was matching up! And the panic set in pretty quickly. I was having a hard time keeping my compass work steady and felt like every time I looked at it it changed direction on me. I honestly have not a notion of what was going on and was getting annoyed that I couldn't see what I thought should have been an obvious 6m high rock!! Ended up finding control 5 and 8 before finally making it to control 1. Well pressure off, there went my clean race, now just make the rest clean! Well I did that for the rest of the tricky controls in all the rocks. Some how things clicked back in and managed a flow through controls 2-10 with only a few small bobbles. Was pushed along with a few other girls that caught and then passed me as well. Then comes leg 10-12. Was with another girl at this point and saw her just ahead of me leaving the control off to the east. Didn't see a route to the right I liked. Looked at the left route which I really didn't like. So straight it was! And this is where I'm going to point out that it would have been VERY useful to have known that in Portugal the cultivated fields (yellow with black dots) are fair game! To me that is an out of bounds symbol and therefore was going wellish to the trees pockets just before the fields and then skirted the fields and battled my way through a TON of darkish green thorns to get to the control when had i run through the fields it would have been a dead easy entry into the control. Well we live and learn I suppose, but lost quite a bit of time there for that grrr. Not to bad through to 12 and 13. Was then a bit high for 14 which was silly! I saw people running away from that control when i was running to the start. Through the spectator control in the arena and straight down the hill into the rocks again. I was fairly clean through the last little loop apart from a few places getting stuck on top of rocks I didn't realise were actually that tall on the other side.
Overall came back and wasn't happy about this race. I knew I can run much better than this! But hey we all have bad days and all we can do is look at them and take them as a learning lesson. I was supposed to learn something from this, and I think I have. That one must be focused from the start and don't just go running off thinking "its a huge rock I'll find it!". Also that part of an international competition prep I should find out if there are things that are different than at home.
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| Spectator control for Elites |
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| Go control - after a long hill! |
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| Arena for the last three days |
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| Rocks! |
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