Fell Relays leg 3 with Murray.
Never done nav and was excited to do it and with a good map and a Tim Tett course I thought it would be to a high standard and it didn't disappoint.
Tom did really well on first leg and then an awesome run by Luetch and Oleg sent us out higher than I thought we might and with some good teams. Set off about 5s of ahead PBray (Ambleside) but with a fair gap ahead.
Murray had warned me he wasn't too fit so I knew I was likely to be a bit stronger but set off nicely and moving well on the easier first legs. Catching up a bit on Matlock and Carnethy. Murray picked a good route to 3 down into the valley. On the paths Ambleside went flying past and Murray seemed to be struggling a bit, which was a bit worrying so early on and on a nice path. We went as straight as we could to 3 from the path in the valley and managed to catch back Ambleside back up who went further round and got well ahead of Carnethy and Matlock.
It got pretty rough underfoot at this stage onwards and on this and the steep climbs Murray was much better comparatively. Straight to five seemed good. We lost 20s to Spongey who took a different route but hard to say what difference was due to.
To number 6 the terrain got very rough with high bracken and deep bogs and I was generally bashing the way through but we could see a load of teams ahead which was motivating. Then in the rough stuff Murray just pulled out about 3min of power from nowhere and I was hanging on and we dropped the Ambleside runner. Then the final descent started and I didn't hold back too much hoping Murray would try and follow but I looked around halfway down and he was a bit back. Turned out he had gone completely ass over tit at the top and then was a bit shaky. Still we got down ahead of Ambleside which seemed to be key in taking the leg win by 4s over them.
We had made up a lot of time on the leaders and also had an 8min gap back down to 6th place which Ray held onto comfortably. Very happy with 5th place and higher than I was expecting but everyone ran well and good tough nav leg suited us. Had a great time running with Murray who was an awesome partner and Peter too.
A fantastically organised race on the day with good routes and good logistics with getting bussed form parking. A bit marred by a ridiculous Shettleston dq which should never have happened and I wasn't too happy with the whole recceing debacle but I guess fell runners don't understand embargoes so much and the details were more like a strongly worded don't do it please rather than a you must not do it. I think they should of threatened disqualification if they didn't wish teams to recce.
Results --
https://www.sportident.co.uk/results/DarkPeak/2019...