MTB Navigator @ Mirboo North

A four-hour mountainbike orienteering event. The weather was perfect, the ground was VERY WET after heavy rain overnight, and the flies were out in their millions.

We had four hours (from 10am to 2pm) to get as many controls as we could. The map was divided into two halves, with the Finish in the middle between the two. I decided to try and get all the controls in one half of the map only, and to take it easy!

On "Go", everyone took off down the road. I followed more sedately, and as I came around a corner at the bottom of the first hill, I could see everyone else not that far ahead grinding up the other side towards the first control on that half of the map.

The second control offered 3 different route choices: road (boring and fast, but required doubling-back), singletrack (scenic and slow, but direct route to control), and track (somewhere in between, but not as direct). I took the scenic route, and found myself on lovely singletrack which would have been dry and enjoyable yesterday! The puddles were deep and scary, and I wasn't really confident of what I was doing. Slow going. Should have taken the road.

Finally got myself out of that mess and proceded without incident around the next ½ dozen controls. The flies were horrendous, and took away the enjoyment of the day. At any point, I would have about 100 of them swarming around my face, trying to crawl into my mouth and up my nose. Very distracting when you're trying to navigate deep puddles or a tricky path. Very unpleasant.

I had a rest break at the top of a hill about halfway through, and ate a Gel. Flies galore. I'd managed to scratch my leg on something, and the wound was black with flies. Gross. The second photo below is my rest break.

From there, I'd kinda run out of energy. The next few controls went okay, but the grind up to one saw me using "walking gear". The control after that saw me in "walking gear" again, up a forestry road with heavy blue chip gravel. Too hard. I decided at that point to head for home, coming in early. My knees were aching and my energy had evaporated.

I eventually climbed up to the next control, where I promptly headed down the wrong road - which I only realised when I found an "unmapped feature". Not unmapped, haha, just mapped on a different road to the one that I thought I was on. Pedalled wearily onwards towards the finish, missing one final control which was on the road I was meant to be on.

33.4 km in 2:51 cycling time (3:23 total time).

Weight	73.5 kg
Walk	16.9 kms
Run	22.8 kms
Cycle	33.4 kms