11. Warralong - Yallambie

The most notable point about this map is the lack of river crossing at the south end. There were only 3 controls on the eastern side, but I thought they were worth getting first and then worrying about coming back home along the west side.

I started off the run very flat. I had trouble deciding whether to get the slightly out of the way #1 first before heading over the river, and decided not to. Then I lost track of my location heading through the thick vegetation towards #8. Then a lonely run heading north towards 20 -- 12. Trying to work out which 8 controls to get on the way home, I just couldn't seem to find a good route. Controls 4 -- 16 -- 7 -- 2 were too tempting being along the river in relatively flat conditions, but in order to get the other 4 controls, I would have to head up to the road and back in between.

I didn't want to venture too far into the streets as I wanted to avoid as much uphill section as possible, so after #16, headed up to #15 before heading back to the river and 7 -- 2. That left 3 controls to get and I still tossed up which ones to get. At this point I was practically back to the start and having to find a small loop.

I considered 6 -- 17 -- 1 but went instead for 13 -- 6 -- 1. At this point each of the 3 remaining controls required a degree of double-backing, which wasn't ideal. I also wished I had taken #1 at the start so I could finish directly from #6. This would've saved me about 400m as it turns out.

I have since noticed the two bridges directly south & north of # 16 that may have saved some distance and enable me to get an extra control on the leg heading north. However, the route to get there from #20 is a bit of a detour as it is, so I was probably right to take the long way to #12. My route took in a total of 6.5km and 50 minutes, a slightly slower effort than recent runs.

I certainly didn't run as well as I have in recent weeks, mostly because I wasn't confident with my route choice. Results for the event aren't available yet, probably due to the absence of the organiser all week, but I certainly don't think I was near the top of competitors for C-course.

I expect the Brunswick course to be quite flat next week, although it looks like there are more cut-through reserves than last week's Fairfield map.