St Albans - 7.5km course.
Had tweaked ankle three times earlier in the morning so not sure whether it was going to hold up, but it survived ok.
Slow to 1 - miscounted buildings then took some time to make sure I was in the right place. Went around the top to 3, east route to 8, west up to 10. Quite liked the downhill on the grass to 13 - and was the right side of the fence.
Fairly tired by now and slowed down for the grassy bit beyond the river saw Mark was only about 3 mins behind me and knew I hadn't the energy to keep going to hold him off on the long leg 17-18 so took the obscure far south off-road route and walked the bits where nobody could see me - seems this may well have been the best route after all but nobody else went that way!
Uphill quite a struggle afterward but glad to be heading back toward the finish. No real mistakes but testing route choices 21-22 suggests that east would have been better than west (thrown off by contour level and map scale both being different to yesterday). Put in a bit of effort for the run in.
Think today's race has been the worst for being held up by traffic - could have easily lost over a minute across the course. Nearly got run over a few times - some people really were not looking where they were driving at all.
As per yesterday, about 15 mins behind the winner and 10 behind Mark. Feels like the exams and injury have taken a lot more out of me than I had first thought. At least this weekend should go some way to building up fitness for BOC next week.
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/304587091