woke up and opened the curtains to find is snowing heavily. decided to skip the morning jog for fear of freezing to the pavement.
Felt rubbish today. My legs were already aching on the way to number 2 and i still had 70 mins left at that point..
Routegadget
Lost some time on number 2 by being too far left. Went through the middle of the lakes to 4 which wasn't a good idea as the open area was much tougher than the wood. Too high on 5. Then got stuck in a marsh up to my mid thigh on the way to 6 (the one next to the uncrossable one, although it was also pretty uncrossable). It was the kind of marsh where you think its going to be ok and suddenly have sunk past your knees. I actually had to grab tree branches to get myself out. Not a good start. Think the route round to the right would have been better although that would have missed the drink point. Thought the drinks points were positioned badly on the whole course as they only allowed one route choice (which generally wasn't th ebest one). Also what is the point of having a spectator control after 10 mins?!! Elise caught be just after 6 although i got 7 before her as she missed it. Then on the way to 13 i was online and could see her too far right and she missed the control quite badly. I was pleased to stay ahead for the rest of the race. The orange standard last few controls were a bit disappointing and the hill at the end killed me off good and proper. Missed a bit on 17 as a small bit of the marsh from earlier had attached itself to my map and looked like a small building. Got mighty confused for a few seconds. Ended up 5th on the day (Jenny overtook me on the run in i think!) but 3rd overall only 9s behind pippa.
All in all a bad start but it picked up. Really had to fight to get my legs to move so it was a good exercise in pushing to the end. Some good route choices but it was a disappointingly easy course.
Can't believe how much it snowed!
RPE: 9