Baldwin Hill, Ashburnham, MA. Temp upper 60s at start, low to mid 70s at finish, and clear blue sky. Less humid than yesterday, which was a blessing. Blackflies were out, and annoying in the southern reaches of the map, but not much otherwise. The Pygmy Goaters, as well as the Billygoaters, were allowed one skip.
I took one fall, on the way down the hill to the 1st(!) control, in full view of a half dozen or so others. How embarrassing. :-) Bruised a knee, hand, and have a nice scrape on my right forearm, which made pushing away face-high branches a bit uncomfortable unless I remembered to lead with my left (map) hand. A couple of smallish bobbles (no wandering!) which I'll catch up with later when I download my watch. And I had to retie (not retire!) my shoe (and top off my water bottle as I decided to skip the 2nd water stop) at the water control at the stream junction (4P/13B).
Surprised to finish 9th of about 23 (plus several dnf's), and second woman overall(!), maybe a couple minutes ahead of Mary Jo, and behind (well behind, I'm sure) Kristin Hall.
More added with Garmin upload: I skipped #9 (#18 on BG map), after deciding I didn't want to climb up to it. That allowed me to do a fairly mindless trail jog (and walking where needed). It also allowed me to see the leader, Will, who passed me on the trail just south of the dam in the middle-East side of the map, and a few others who passed a few minutes later. Since he passed me at around 92 minutes, I figured the finishing time was going to be long this year, and it was (typical is 95-100 minutes) at 106 minutes; I think because the map was pretty technical.
Results Yep, about a half hour after Kristin.
My route