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Thursday, 10 December 2009

NZ Orienteers Dominate Goat

Just to clarify that title; the Goat is a mountain running race traversing the 22km of round the mountain track between Whakapapa and Turoa ski fields on Mt Ruapehu. Personally it's about my favourite mtn running race and being quite a rough track and requiring concentration the entire way, the race has proven to be popular with orienteers. Such was the case last weekend when around 490 runners lined up for the start, including over 10 current and former NZ (and adopted NZ) orienteers.

Having run the race last year in near perfect conditions, Rita Homes and I were hugely amused to be called out as 2nd and 3rd seeds respectively in the womens race. Turns out her seeding was well deserved, i still think mine was a bit of a joke...a lot of women from last year can't have been racing this year!

Unfortunately the week prior to the race had seen a fair amount of rain, leaving the single lane track perfect for the front runners to mulch up. I found the track slippery and treacherous in the 1st wave of starters, so i can only imagine how Tessa found it in the 4th wave! Despite my plan to stick with Rita for as much of the race as i could, i somewhat lost my gameface (see below article) in a pile of mud about 3km into the race. Once I found my feet again, i could just see Rita disappearing off into the distance! I spent the rest of the race watching Rebecca Smith's back gradually get further in front of me, and Greta Knarston staying a steady couple of hundred metres behind me.

Meanwhile, somewhere in front of me in the boys race, Tom Reynolds had decided after reading Jamie's version of our profiles that his gameface needed a little bit of work. This was successfully accomplished with a full face plant, landing on rocks (as opposed to the only other option of mud). Must have worked though, Tom one of many impressive results coming from orienteers:

Women:

  • 2nd Piret Klade
  • 4th Rita Homes
  • 6th Rebecca Smith
  • 8th Lizzie Ingham (2nd junior)
  • 10th Greta Knarsten (3rd junior)
  • Tessa Ramsden (6th junior)
Men:

  • 7th Karl Dravitzki
  • 8th Dennis De Monchy
  • 10th Bryn Davies
  • 11th Tom Reynolds (2nd junior)
  • 24th Jourdan Harvey (7th junior)
Also hard luck to Penzy Dinsdale, who busted both ankles early on in the race.

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