Day Three.  Warm and sunny again.  Mid morning start time again.  Multitudes of rocks again.  Thick scratchy vegetation again. Remind me why we’re doing this? Oh yeah – cos it feels good when you cross the finish line and you haven’t mispunched on any of the three days. It’s all about still being upright at the end.

Today’s map was different to yesterday’s – the first half of everyone’s courses was in open forest, and we could actually SEE the rocks and the contours!  You just had to make sure you were on the right boulder, cliff, boulder cluster, or bare rock. It was much faster than yesterday, and I got through the first half of my course in about 25 minutes.

Then I crossed the fence. The fence that separated the nice open farmland from the horrible evil forest of doom. The only good thing I could say about it was that there was shade. But there was also limited visibility, lots of scratchy things, huge spider webs (quickly dispatched with a swipe of my multi purpose walking pole), and way more rock than the map suggested. The contours are also not quite right. And with low visibility and dodgy contours, there is not much else to use.

I fumbled my way through the next few legs, cursing as I shoved through unavoidable green stuff.  Crossing a second fence into a clearing was only temporary relief; minutes later we were straight back into it.  There must have been 15 orienteers all looking for no 7, and wondering why no-one could find it. It was meant to be in a gully, but there was no gully near it.  After that I was in a procession, everyone trudging resignedly, ticking off the last couple of forest legs and looking forward to emerging back into civilisation.  By the end I was very hot and tired – three days of this will do that to you – and was only just able to summon up a desultory run in the chute.  Punch the finish, download, and DONE.  Easter 3 Day completed.  Take a bow.

I was last of the finishers today, which was disappointing, as I thought I’d done OK in the open stuff. Obviously I’d been slower than yesterday on the second half. But I got round, and in the end, that’s what counts.

Shout out to Philly, who blitzed the course yesterday and today, and won overall!  Brilliant effort and I’m really pleased for her.

A surprise awaited me – at the finish tent, I was presented with a bag of easter eggs, marshmallows, and a sweet potato (???), as winner of the W55AS Chocolate Leg. I’d been invited to be part of this highly serious competition, when we went to the Sprint in Newcastle a few weeks ago, but didn’t really think anything would come of it.  Apparently they picked a random leg on yesterday’s course, and awarded the prize to the slowest person on that leg.  BUT – I wasn’t the slowest person on any leg yesterday, so I really have no idea why I won.  Maybe if it was the first day, where I was last on several legs (though surprisingly not the first one – someone else took 4 seconds longer than me, and went on to win).  I am not looking gift chocolates in the mouth.

Tomorrow is a well earned rest day; time to lie in, relax, reflect and regroup, and maybe do a bit of sightseeing. The stories from the last three days will no doubt get taller, the forest will get thicker, and we’ll bemoan our errors and relive our glories.  Then we’ll do it all over again next time.