These races aren't like any I've done before, they have controls off paths so you get a control description sheet like in foot-o. Pippa kindly lent me a description holder for my wrist as I didn't have one. The map fitted in my map holder without having to change it around and I was pleased to see that the start triangle was out of sight so nobody could see you at the beginning.
I was the 2nd girl to start, which wasn't great. I went the safe way to number 1, as I do tend to mess the 1st one up quite often. Today it was good, so I settled down and tried to concentrate fully. It was so hot it was unbelievable, way over 30 degrees. I took a route across the open ground and nearly keeled over with the heat. I just wanted to get off and curl up and sleep. It was like a desert.
I messed up number 4 a bit, got a bit distracted by the bloke at the drinks station and looked across to see my control, but when I went there it wasn't mine, I spotted another so I was a bit annoyed with myself and went to it instead, but that was the wrong one too! So I finally looked at the map and saw mine was about 100m away actually and went straight to it. Oops! Luckily all that didn't take much time, I blame the heat! It was in the open desert area...
The rest was fine, it was just a hard slog, I'm rubbish in the heat. I had all 3 gels to try and get some energy and was sipping at the water all the way. Glad I had the camelbak on! I didn't see that many people really, lots of blokes coming towards me but not many going my way. I was with a Danish girl for a while, we kept taking different routes and popping out just near each other.
I did a big sprint to the line. I followed 4 or 5 blokes to the last control and actually passed a few in the sprint too! I'm glad I did that because the results were really tight, there were seconds in it for the A final.
I was absolutely shocked when I found I'd got into the A final! 60 out of the 73 girls got in, we were split into two groups, so I had to come 30th or better out of the 37 in my group. My goal for the world championships was to come 60-something in each race, and to qualify meant I effectively had to come 50-something. I though it would have been nice but was more than I could do. But I did it! Amazing!!!
Also I just found out that I was the fastest girl in the world today for that sprint to the line!! Unbelievable :-)
The finish area:
Being stressed out before the race:
The finishing straight - fastest girl in the world here!!!!!:
The finish:
Edwyn has an injury from going over the bars!
Andy was pretty tired too:
The map:
