With lock downs easing and having been recently double jabbed it finally felt safe to visit Maxwell and Liz in Bangor. Colin took the boat across and spent a couple of days mainly focussed on practical things. A nice lunch out at the golf club and a very nice dinner at the yacht club.
On a saturday a busy day putting on the much delayed orienteering event at Polkemmet that was delayed multiple times from April 2020. A small crowd on a nice afternoon. Good to get it done.
On Sunday it was a trip out to Craig a Barns near Dunkeld for the Scottish Orienteering Championships. The first "hard" forest orienteering for me since late 2019. I took it slow and cautious with a focus on accurate navigation. This was successful but at the cost of quite a slow time. Very enjoyable and a good challenge.
A busy week of racing concluded with a very long hill racy from Blair Atholl up a munro. Great weather - hot for running and a lovely course through the gardens and woods by Blair Castle out into the open moors and hills.
I was very pleased with my form. On this type of running it's a case of running on the flats and downs and slowing to a walk on the moderate to steep uphills to conserve energy. Was able to maintain a reasonable run pace on all the bits I would want to. Almost 20 miles and 1000 m climb - completed in around 3 hrs 50 min and coming in 60th place of 150.
First hill race since CoVid. To make things difficult I cycled out from home (and back) making around 2 hrs in total on the bike.
A nice evening but with the effect of running in the previous days and the cycle out I wasn't on good form for the run. It felt like very hard work and I was very much at the back of the field. Still - lovely to be out running in a crowd again.
