Billygoat at Balwdin Hill, nice course, nice map, nice weather, yes, on a warmer side but surprisingly it felt Ok, and I drank water at every water stop.
Started out well, took the trail to 1, didn't push hard and tried to figure out the best skip for me. Nothing seemed as good as 1 so I decided on that and let my head rest. Actually, I had a hard time concentrating today, possibly due to sleep deprivation. It was nice running with other people and saved me from doubting myself too much. I saw Peter on the way to 3 and stayed with him for a good while. I was not intimidated running with him but the pressure was there. 4,5,6 good, Balter caught up to us but I lost him on 9. I made a mistake on 7 where I thought I was higher on the stone wall and veered right. Getting spacey after 8, almost overrun 10, if Peter hadn't been there I would have spent the same amount of time that Ian did on this control. Then I got pissed at myself and executed 11 and 12 well but faded at 13. This is when Alex caught up to me and I didn't try to fight to run with her. 14, 15, Ok. 16 was strange because I was coming in to it via the small reentrant above and was checking off boulders but the cluster appeared to me as large separate boulders so I thought I may have been left of the control and ran right but then realized, nope I was right and went back. bleh. So very tired on 18 and 19, just trying to finish. Rest Ok, slow.
This map seemed like a good place to practice not reading all the details and choose relatively large attack points. That was my plan for this course. Being somewhat spacey for a better part of it actually helped with this strategy because I naturally didn't pay enough attention to the map. Having people around helped but when I was on my own I had to force focus close to the control circles. Need to practice this more.
This year is first time I get points on Billygoat :) 11th place.
Billygoat map + route