I designed a no-trails exercise at the north end of the Middlesex Fells. The geometry of the map constrained the legs to be fairly short, and there were 24 controls over 9.7 km. Ali and Magnus joined me, and Stephen walked the Reservoir trail with Presto. The sky was clear, but the temperature was a brisk 0° C with a strong west wind. Standing outside by the cars was brutally uncomfortable, but once in the woods, conditions improved. I ran in SL sleeves, tights, and (superfluous) bike shorts.
Running in the fells is much more interesting on a no-trails map. I know the area around Bear Hill too well for it to be challenging, but Long Pond was delightful. The objective of the exercise was to stay in contact and read the terrain rather than the plentiful trails. Magnus wisely suggested that contours + vegetation only would be a good exercise in the Fells. I tried to mentally separate the map-reading and terrain-matching components of navigation; this was basically inevitable, since I designed the exercise.
Circumstances with keys meant that either Stephen or I had to return to the cars before Ali, or she would be uncomfortable. I started the exercise moments after Ali, and we stumbled about the hillside looking for the first boulder. While she had doubled back to take the control again, I thought she was ahead of me and so ran aggressively.
My flow was choppy; I can do a much better job synchronizing the various components of O than I did. It didn't help that we were running without streamers, but if I can become confident in my navigation without streamers, navigating with flags will be easy. I messed up 1 pretty badly, but at least I had company. Boulders were ambiguous, missing, or very small at 5, 6, and 19. I wasn't certain about 16, but apparently I was in the right spot.
Quickroute. Version 2.4!
Upgrade complete.