RR10: Marwell

A warm and sunny evening the middle of a July heatwave, and the seventh in the terrific RR10 series took place at Marwell.  Parking was in the zoo carpark and the race was in the fields and woods behind.

400m into the race and we headed down a hill with tree roots everywhere.  It was quite precarious with the field still very dense.  The around a beautiful meadow of long grass with a singe-file trail in it.  This posed a dilemma - ease up and go steady in my place or go off piste through long straggly grass?  I did a mixture of both, and managed (just) not to trip up in tangles.  Then two laps of an interesting circuit - a long drag up through a sunny path and thena terrific hurtle down through a shady green lane lane.

I was gradually overtaking people and felt OK... but near the end I was suddenly overtaken by a lady and jolted into response.  I overtook up the final hill and gasped my way to the finish line.  A big effort always requires a lie-down afterwards and this was one of those.

The result - 27th place which is my worst this season but keeps my grouping fairly tight. 

Here is my standing in the men's league so far:

...and here are the graded scores (numbers representing % of men I've beaten):

Three more races to go... and I improve on these scores?