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I was tempted to stay in bed when I saw that the steady rain had arrived as forecast, but I had everything prepared so I drove the hour or so down to Goodwood Country Park, right next to the famous racecourse. By the time I arrived, the rain had been falling for several hours. It was not particularly heavy, but everywhere and everything was sodden. Thankfully, there was very little wind and it was not cold. I quite like damp and dripping woodland – the sounds and colours are rather muted and there are pretty water droplets hanging from everything. I also like the innocent pleasure of a hot shower and fresh towel when you have been wet through.

I prepared with a few other hardy people, chatting as we sorted ourselves out. Judging by the car park there were already lots of people out in the woods. My map was wet before I even finished copying the course on to it, despite the “tent”, and I realised that seeing anything through my glasses was going to be hard, with droplets on the outside and condensation on the inside. In fact it was a nightmare and I spent quite a lot of time on the course peering at the map and moving my head from side to side to find a spot with reasonable clarity.

The first few controls were very easy indeed – more like an orange than a green course – though I was slightly thrown on control 2 by a small building that I could not see on the map. I was about to become worried when I turned round and saw the control. Although the navigation did become more technical, I did not find it too hard. This left me free to try to keep moving and improve my speed over the ground.

The woods in the country park are quite mixed. There are some stands of tall beech, with almost nothing beneath it so it is very open to run through. There are a few very dense areas too, but mostly it is a mixture of deciduous trees, many of which look fairly young, shrubs and ground vegetation. The ground has lots of small “features” with pits, tree-stumps, large logs, lots of hides, benches and tables, small ditches and earthbanks, as well as small sections of fence and earth-wall. There are lots of paths. The park is on chalk, so the rain had gone into the ground and there were very few puddles and no streams. The soil is thin, often no more than 2cm on top of the white rock, so the wet made things slippery. In a few places the soil had turned into a very efficient lubricant making a thin covering on hard chalk. This made me nervous about running, even so I felt reasonably fit and comfortable all the way round and felt like I was making progress rather than struggling.

I was delighted to finish within the hour. I have been aiming at, and close to, completing a green course in less than an hour for quite a while, so I was delighted to do it today, even if the course was slightly shorter than usual and had easier navigation. This was the first time I have completed a green course in less than an hour – a milestone worth celebrating, I think. Now I have to do it consistenly and aim at 50 minutes!

UPDATE: Well, I am still pleased with my increase in speed, but it seems everyone else went much faster too, so the result was 29th. The winning time was about half an hour! Just shows how important the ease of navigation and terrain are in determining what happens, rather than just the distance.