It was a lovely evening and the Two Towers race was on but we didn't see any of this and just bumped into a few people warming up.
We ran up a short way and then Steve handed the reigns to us, asking us to take turns in getting to certain places on the map.
The first few places we went to we just used the map and found our way using our surroundings, e.g. walls, streams and contours.
At one point, I was trying to get us to a spring and couldn't help but feel we had come further than we should have done. At this point, Steve taught us about pacing out and, as we had been following a stream, he pointed out a stream junction that we hadn't yet crossed. He told us to walk along until we got to the stream junction, counting our paces. When we got to the stream junction we looked at the map to see how far it was away from the spring (which we had already passed) and used our pacing to work out how far back we would need to go before we arrived at the spring. It was incredibly useful information!
Later on, when we were more onto the open moors, we started using our compasses as well. Colin really wanted to try to take the most direct routes from point to point, rather than just finding paths, so we found ourselves running through all sorts of marshes and long grass and we got really soaked, even though it was a dry sunny evening but it all added to the fun and was good compass training.
Speaking of compasses, when I got my brand new £25 Silva Expedition 4 compass out and we were all trying to get a bearing, Steve said to me 'where have you been keeping that compass?' I said, 'in the drawer, why?' to which Steve replied 'look at it and look at ours and tell me what's wrong with it'. I did and it was pointing in completely the opposite direction! Useful.
Near the end of the route was an extremely steep muddy hill which we had to get down, which apparently was also on the race route. It was so slippery that I kept just bouncing into trees to slow me down so I didn't just slide down on my backside.
I didn't get home until 9.45 but had a great night and can't wait to have another go.
Total distance - 6.4 miles
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