Southern Championships: Starposts (BKO)

Southern Champinships at Starposts (BKO)
Course 4: 11.8km 260m 24 controls
Oh where to start. First race as an M18 and first race as an elite. Was pretty excited, had a decent plan I'd put together and was looking forward to it. However, what I hadn't thought was that this is only the second (or first if we're talking decent areas) bit of orienteering since the final interland selection really. The scale really threw me as well, 1:150000 was a new thing to me and I didn't give myself enough time to adjust.
Started off ok, following the path along before cutting up the hill on to the ridge, but was too far right, losing maybe 10-15secs on just the first control. On this kind of terrain, every second counts, so thought to myself that I'd have to tighten it up. Set off to two but realised I'd had no plan (was to become a feature), so contoured, but too low so had to put on a bit of a burst to get up the hill, found it fine, but maybe another 10secs lost. Plan was to head straight to 3 which worked well, following the vegetation boundary up the hill, yet ran past the control so again, another 10 seconds or so. So had lost half a minute all ready before i was even a 6th of the way around. Set off to 4, determined to get this right, yet I didn't. Poor bearing out of the control so a 90 degree error, righted myself, yet about a minute (+10seconds in the circle), on this one, before righting myself, to run up the hill and then in to the control. Pretty good leg to 5, headed left on the path and cut across the open and then cutting in to the trees, yet headed slightly right so lost 10 seconds in the circle again. Really poor route to 6, headed right out on to the big path, all the way along and then cutting in on the other paths, annoyingly a small slip in the circle as well. Know i was 2 mins or so behind ali and i was really pushing on the paths (pace around 3:30's for large stretches), so more like 3 mins. Annoying and i knew when i got about half way through the route. Then off to 7, another mistakes 30secs or so, poor bearing again and then faffing in the circle, not concentrating at all. Found 8 ok, but cut in a bit early, not too much. Found 9 ok, just a bit down heartened by now because of the lost time. Headed straight to 10 and

found it ok, but lost maybe 20secs on the path network, but not a huge mistake. Off to 11, again, found it fine, no issues on that (shortest leg on the course). 12 could have been worse, headed to the path, but missed the turning (which wasn't there), so had to head to the path to relocate and then cut in (another minute gone). 13 was pretty good navigation wise, couple of hesitations (10 secs). Really cocked up 14. Poor bearing so ended up at 17 somehow, the finally got back on track, took the further re entrant, completely missing the path, so overall, lost maybe 2:30 to 3 minutes on this, very disappointing. Found 15 fine, just taking a straight bearing, same with 16, could see it miles away so no issue there across the open. Another big mistake on 17, confused by the paths and my own poor orientation, meaning i lost about 2 minutes for something stupid on a control I'd been to before. Determined to try and nail the last section, straight through the marsh, passing tim on the path so thought naively that if i could burn through it, i might be able to close the time. This essentially caused me just to make more mistakes. Found 18 fine, but then a poor bearing off to 19 threw me completely, losing up to 2 minutes on something i really shouldn't have.Similar story on 20, losing about 1:30 i think, just purely through not taking my time. Decent on 21, losing maybe 10 seconds by cutting off the path when the control was basically on it. Fell apart on 22. Just couldn't fathom the paths, tried to go straight but just got confused, passed phil on a path saying he was going to 18 so that got me back on track, then up the path and in to the control. Ali caught me (16mins) on the way to 23, more or less straight and then to 24 straight and the finish.
Not too sure what happened today. I think not sticking to my plan was the main thing, the plan was to be steady throughout and focus on navigation but i didn't i tried to race which i just shouldn't have done. Almost 25 minutes behind dane which is a ridiculous margin by any stretch of the imagination Been running with michael in all the selection races and we've been having some good close races so thinking about it i honeslt reckon i lost about 20 minutes on route choice and mistakes which is wrong. Decent runs from some of the boys, especially dane. Also, my lack of practice showed, so more events and training needed, before interland and the JK. This was not good!
Dane won in a time of 1:06:54
Training is still happening, but beginning speed work, also getting to more events, but using them as training, no point racing when i can be training for when it matters. Need to improve quickly as this was a real wake up call. Onwards and upwards...(and quickly i hope)!