orienteering 58:36 [4] 5.2 km (11:16 / km) +80m 10:28 / km
Sneaton Forest, Blue course. This was Tasha's idea. I did about 4 hours of gardening yesterday and woke up stiff and sore from that. It rained constantly and the temperature at the forest was about 10C which felt pretty cold. I was happy to run the whole course with my cag on.
Sneaton is not very hilly but it is a very physical forest. Off the big tracks you are always crossing big ditches, ploughed furrows, fallen trees and areas of felling. At this time of year there is quite a lot of undergrowth - bracken, ferns and long grass - and underfoot there is always some give in the ground, and quite often a lot of give. It was hard work just to keep moving. Having said that there were some quite pleasant bits of forest, still with furrows but with not much on the ground and a bit firmer underfoot.
I plodded along finding all the controls without too much bother.
#2 I cut a corner I would have been better off not cutting and got caught in some fallen trees, 30 secs.
#11 I turned off the forest road too soon, distracted by the parked cars, and had to hack across to the intended path, 30 secs.
I left #11 slightly in the wrong direction and hit the forest road further right than intended, 30 secs.
#16 I just couldn't find anywhere to run and slogged through every furrow and patch of brashings. There must have been easier running somewhere because other people were much faster.
Still, no big mistakes and just about kept going so I took the win. yay.
I talked briefly to Paul Taylor and apparently the adjacent area being used for the JK is more interesting and in better condition.
There was an oddity on the map - deep entrenched ditches were marked with the new 'Trench' symbol - two parallel narrow black lines. With my eyesight this meant I couldn't tell the difference between ditches and rides. The ditches marked this way were easily jumpable but might have been hard to climb out of if you fell in.