Hungaria Cup Day 5, M40.
http://rg.mtfsz.hu/cgi-bin/reitti.cgi?act=map&...Temperatures dropped to get down to about 24 degrees which is a lot more manageable, and with Saturday not having to worry about work, I was prepared to finally invest into this day and attack the course properly, pushing hard.
This lasted all the way until, mmmm... about 30 seconds. running hard, downhill, branches across and whilst things are a bit hazy, I may have been flipping my map to check control descriptions (as I forgot to take loose descriptions before the start...), anyway gravity took the better and I took a huge tumble, as in, proper head over heels, tumbles and everything. Jumping up I checked the map and realised I can't see half the course, checking why I saw it was completely bloody... so I promptly saw that my right hand has a finger quite twisted and blood pouring. With the adrenalin pumping I wasn't quite feeling it so wasn;t sure how bad it was - as the first two controls were towards the arena I decided to jog on and see how it holds up before giving up and retiring. But at this point, all bets were off.
At around #2 whilst the blood was still flowing, it seemed manageable as I was holding my right hand up (a bit strange running that way), so I have decided to try and complete the course. From this point on, a lot of the challenge was moderating my pace so that the blood wasn't pumping too hard out of my finger and listening to my body fully expecting it to go weak from the blood loss at some point. That did thankfully not come, but of course the pace wasn't anywhere near what I should have had, and made quite a few smaller navigational mistakes and hesitations all the way through. Surprisingly this still was my best placing of the week... seems like temperatures make more of a difference than injury...?