NZ Pealings racing

Douglas and Gethin were both racing today.

Gethin was racing in the Otago Championships Kart race, and Douglas was racing in the Southland Schools Orienteering Championships.

The Otago Champs is a trophy that Gethin has pretty much made his own - he's won it in every class he's competed in. This year he's in a different class - Rotax Max.

Douglas and I went to the Otago Champs in Dunedin last week to get some practice before today's race - not much orienteering has happened over the summer.
Douglas did well on the Saturday, and won his class, but made a couple of big mistakes on the Sunday, so he learnt a good lesson or two in preparation for this weekend.

In the karting, Gethin went true to form, and won the first four races, which meant he couldn't be beaten, so, as he was feeling pretty ill having been suffering with flu like symptons all week, he decided not to race the last race. He'd won the trophy so there was no need.

Douglas was less confident of winning - however, he was last of his class to set off and clearly learnt from last weeks mistakes, as he was first back. He won by over 6 minutes.

Winning is a frequent occurence for Gethin, in fact he's grumpy if he doesn't win. For Douglas however, it's a bit of a new experience - this is probably the first major thing he's won. (He's had a lot of placings in events, both karting and athlectics, but not wins)
Douglas is understandably pretty happy with his efforts.

Results are in the PDF attached and you can view details here

When all the senior-boys had set off, I grabbed a map and had a run around the course too (their course was the hardest course). Once I'd got over a couple of small errors at the first two controls, I got used to the scale of things again, I did OK. It turn's out Douglas and I are pretty closely matched. I beat him this time - he beat me last week and we're only around a minute apart.