Day 1 at Swindale South. 10.6km M21L course.
Grim weather, but was enjoying myself for much of it.
Cautious to 1, tried avoiding most of marsh to 2 (little realising just how blue the map was later on...), didn't get confused by the tough warriors at 3 but got to feature and lost almost a minute looking for the control.
Didn't mess up 4 - did well to tick off features and identify that the first control I found was just 100 yards before the control, on the line, and on an identical feature - made for a good attackpoint.
First real mistake at 8 - went too far. Saw the control but decided it wasn't mine and did a tour of two other controls before deciding said control had to be correct. 2.5 mins lost.
10 - went fine, got to within circle and found hundreds of large boulders, but only two were mapped. Was within about 10-20 yards on control but couldn't see it and had to again go around everything until I found where it was hidden.
11 not good either - had a poor bearing and then managed to put a 90 degree kink in it without realising. Then noticed I was going north and corrected - only to find was going north again. Found myself alongside vast expanse of marsh, so should have been easy to relocate but ended up stood still for almost a minute before going again. Probably 4 to 5 mins lost.
Got "marshed" up to my waste coming out of 11 and took half a minute to free myself. Was about now where the enjoyment of running in torrential rain started to tail off and tiredness creep in. Had David Maliphant for company up until 15 which spurred me on a bit but didn't have enough energy to run against the wind back up the hill.
Pleased about the thigh deep stream crossing to wash off marsh muck, but Burley had finally appeared (4 mins) at 18 and was catching fast. Walked the marsh to 19 and then started going down the hill - quick enough to drop him again.
Think it was an ok performance overall - suspect that my running stile is better suited to marshes than others as it doesn't seem to slow me down much. Pleased to have Mark on my tail towards the end to make it interesting
http://www.strava.com/activities/177822420