Oh man. This was one of the most hardcore longs I've done. For those who weren't there, there was knee high blueberry across a huge swath of the area, making running very difficult in almost all places, and decreasing visibility on the ground.
Anyway. One was good, followed the plan, and didn't go across an enormous crag as the track suggests. At 2 I thought I crossed the cleared ride higher up, and felt a bit unsure about everything until I hit the re-entrant with the big cliff at the top. After that I was spot on to 2, 3 and 4. 5 was where things went wrong. I was on track to hit the seasonal stream then thought I left it on the path (where I also bumped into Alex). But the path was unmarked and parallel, and I was pushed too far to the right. Then I checked two boulders which had no control, before deciding to bail to the big crag I saw on the way to two. Just as I was bailing, I ran into the control.
After that I wasn't concentrating too well, and though I intended to stay high to 6, I went way too high, and the going was absolutely awful. Then attacked from what I thought was my attack point, but was actually a similarly shaped hill higher up. Figured it out pretty quickly and got the control fine after that, but might have wasted up to 6 minutes with the bad line/poor attack combo. Seven started well, then I thought I had hit the small knoll and crag too far east, and corrected, then realised that was actually the feature when things stopped making sense, and had to turn back. D'oh. Byt this point Alex had got her usual pep back, and led most of the way to 8, 9 & 10 though I peeled off a bit earlier and just beat her to 8. The hill before 11 was a killer, and after that I was done - moving slowly round the sprint bit, helping to free Alex from a killer tree, and finally finishing after being destroyed by a mini Breton on the final bit of track running. It was therefore a bit embarrassing to claim my first proper A Meet victory today, and essentially be crowned the least worst of the girls on the red today. It was a pretty poor showing, the older men really showing us up.
Still, I don't think I can do too much about it till I get fitter, and I already felt better this weekend than I did in Georgia, although the terrain was way tougher. So just have to keep plugging! Here's to another good three weeks of training.
http://sprintseries.org/doma/show_map.php?user=bec...
Now thw splits are up it appears my faffing on the way to two was more serious that I thought, and also that going through the woods to 12, instead of up the road as Jenny did, was a bad idea, even counting the acjospe hair untangle.