Welsh League at Caerphilly Mountain. 7.4km brown.
If it wasn't so close, wouldn't have come to this and gone to Cardington Cracker instead. Nice email via fabian4 last night saying that the terrain was actually even worse than described in event details! Map was very green.
1 - found a nice elephant track most of the way down the shoulder. No trouble
2 - roughly straight - ok. Lovely wood around control
3 - around paths to south and big knoll for attackpoint. Think this was the best route
4 - again around paths to south, turn in at corner. Brambles annoying but passable here so again would say best route
5 - found Mark Saunders (started well ahead) looking for 4 and directed him back. Took a good line and found control but felt a long way and didn't seem right. GPS doesn't indicate anything odd
6 - rejoiced at veg boundary when became able to run again. Went down into re-entrants a bit early - Tony Noott asked me if I'd seen his map on my way down.
7 - around paths to south. Reasonable. Went in to control a bit early.
8 - around paths, straight might have been better
9 - straight, but the map wasn't really any good here. Hit an unmapped bike track and ran along for a while expecting some veg change. Realised I'd gone too far and went back along what could have been interpreted as a earth bank. Found Sam looking around too, then found actual earth bank - and saw Alice punching control next to bike track having spent a while looking.
10 - went in quite early, leaving until later was quicker.
11 - took the straight Bedwell-Burley route. Not ideal. Amazingly there is a shade of green darker than this. Full on fight, far far tougher than Voose. Had seen western route as an option, but hadn't noticed the best - paths to the east - at all. Many minutes lost here.
12 - went down the unmapped track parallel to mapped, so had to climb back up again. Quite nice terrain around here.
13 - ok
14 - went to the edge and peered over. No chance for me so went around the long way, surprisingly it's less than 1 min slower, but then lost time as the end not seeing kite, overshooting, then coming back and trying to find good way in. In the end went over the branchy-wall thing I think the details (but not map) said we shouldn't cross as so no other way.
15 - Paths - and quick to try and recatch at least Alice. Beat Mark B on this split so clearly good.
16 - a very dark moment here - went straight and after the first big spur was the most unpleasant terrain of the whole map. Completely in-penetrable and only way of backing out was through the deep bog down to the bottom. All set to retire but then heard Mark S calling out to someone so knew he was still close. Not very close to map here so was expecting control on a spur rather than re-entrant! Visited control 129 on the way
17/18 - straight, quick to catch Mark and Alice so I wouldn't be stuck on my own for long leg to 19
19 - nice unmapped wet path along stream pretty much on straight line. Not quick but after 11 had given up this as a race and just about getting around the course and finished as easily as I could
20 - ok
21 - left to SW to pick up path but it didn't really work. Doubling back to wet-white was better. Didn't notice first ditch but did notice control hidden in fallen tree.
22 - was going to go straight but lack of Mark and Alice set alarm bells going - path route to south much better. Really should have planned this in advance but clearly not in right mode and resigned to fighting through crap. White around the control was genuinely white!
23 - worked off contours and trees, hitting an elephant track was a bonus but not much to give away the pit at the end so did have to do some navigating. Ran past some interesting holes but all I can see on map is two small gullies - not sure on mapping there.
Not truly dreadful area and enjoyed a lot of it. Not sure many took it too seriously. Compared to Mark Burley, even had some good splits which is unusual for me - especially in grot terrain. Lucky with the timing as had I been completely alone near 11 and 15-16 probably would have had enjoyed this far less.
https://www.strava.com/activities/445410402
Clive took 82 mins for 7.4k so makes me feel a bit better! Just probably should be aiming to be faster than Alice given we took roughly same time from controls 9 to 21.