My course started with a short leg followed by a 1.5km leg. Although I didn’t see it at the time, there was some route choice on this second leg which is more than could be said for the 2km track run that Christine’s course began with. My first real mistake wasn’t until number seven where, having just overtaken Hedley, I was cutting through the woods aiming to be caught by the stream/path crossing. Unfortunately I failed to register that the path was indistinct on the near side of the stream and ran straight over it and in to the marsh beyond. By the time I’d corrected myself I had to overtake Hedley again!
The course was pretty much all out in the open of Lucas Castle from then on and my legs didn’t enjoy the strength sapping combination of heather and marsh. My next blunder wasn’t until 19 though. It wasn’t until after I’d finished that Christine pointed out the narrow rides marked as strips of open land amongst the rough open. These really didn’t show up on the 1:15,000 map. I’d been puzzled by an extra path on the ground earlier on in the course but on the way to 19 I made the mistake of following one thinking it was a the track beyond. Not too much time lost but frustrating anyway.
It was a bit of a shock to finish and discover in the results that I was 30th out of 67. The graphs show that, on the whole, I was just too slow, particularly given all the fit military types present for the Inter-Services Champs. Think it’s time I started doing some training again!