Will start with some obvious criticisms.
1. My start was delayed by 13 mins - despite the original "announcement" that they were going to go to 1 min intervals to catch up the original 10 min delay. The 20 mins I spent at the start had me cooled down and knee seized up by time I actually started. The cause of the delay? EMIT's stand alone start clock kept resetting. Surely in 13 mins somebody could have improvised with, say, a watch and a voice rather than have everyone come up to the start, not know what time they were on, and verged on a free for all at times.
2. The course design, as 1 side of A4 with 39 controls, was a mess and incredibly hard to read and follow, and with kinks where not expected. No less than 28 breaks in overprint due to overlaps. Spent a lot of time trying to find the next control (e.g. 15-16), in the end found I was unsuccessful - missing 19 out as the line from 19-20 was broken because 18 was imbetween them and thought the 19 was attached to the 27 circle! There would have been much more clarity if double sided.
Other than this - was mostly good. Great place to run around, good map and sunny weather.
Knee was pretty bad from the start, but there were many sections when it was ok - just not on slopes or sand. As per yesterday, at times had to give more attention to looking after knee than navigating (the delay at start meant benefits of IBP had worn off fairly early on).
Some very good legs - mostly short, but some dull longer ones that appeared to be just for distance's sake rather than suit the "terrain". 22 would have been much improved if used the control at the top of the steps just SWW to give route choice. As with everyone else I was a bit sceptical that the steps after 22 were the ones I wanted...
All my misses came at the end down the beach - but nothing big.
https://www.strava.com/activities/998302142
No racing for a couple of weeks now.