Turns out that most First Great Western trains were broken down this afternoon... It's fairly embarrassing that when half of the London-South Wales trains aren't running at all during the works that so many of the remainder are getting cancelled or delayed by 30 mins +... Fitting an 8 coach high speed train's worth of passengers into the following 2 car train didn't really work (surprising really!) - I just, and literally just, squeezed on at Filton, and we left 50+ behind, and another load at Patchway. Counted over 100 standing in my coach (one of the old trains with narrow aisle between seats) so probably around 400 on board. Still, 3 days down, 3 weeks and 4 days to go :-(
But the motorway was clear. Unable to get time off work to help, entered the bike course to run and prepared a combined Sallowvallets/Beechenhurst O map at 1:15,000 scale for me and rickyp to use. Legs tired so out for training, specifically to start getting used to the scale after over 3 years since JK2014.
Route 68-67-66-72-64-71-62-63-79-75-F. 2 mins late = 198 points (out of 400). Wanted to start with Sallowvallets as rare to run with O map. 68 came after the "right" distance, but every junction on track to 67 took about 3 times longer than I expected (not helped by 67's junction being in the wrong place on the O map). Big climb to 66, and again a very long way along the track.
As training, went down the slope and back up for 72. Distances seemed to go better here but was pretty slow on way down and both ankle and knee not 100% happy. Cut through terrain again for 64 - shorter route (but lost some time looking for the tape). Track to 71 took a while to get up, but distance about right.
Terrain to 62 - fine, then cutting across to 63 was less so. Came out on the track where I expected but again took at least twice as long to get to the control than I thought was reasonable - despite being all downhill.
Another terrain cut into Beechenhurst was a big mistake - fairly ok to the road (alright - brambly up bank onto road) then pretty shit once across it. Binned several minutes fighting my way through undergrowth when should have stuck with the boring and taken tracks due south and then east. 8 mins to go from Speculation so knew would be late. (Also lost my official map in grot so had no descriptions, or idea of penalty). Pulled my back a bit leaning over the gate at 75 but still managed a reasonably quick finish.
Quite nice - and good to do this with a proper orienteering map as on foot. Managed to beat rickyp - but I desperately need to spend more time getting used to the scale in the next fortnight.
https://www.strava.com/activities/1148729328