Orienteering at Hound Tor - 10th February

Currently I am planning the Kerno Gallopen at Cookworthy for the 24th February and so last Friday after I finished off the last of my to do list and tagged the last control, I set off to run my Brown course.  Obviously I can't say too much, but what I can say is that it's hard going out there.  So come Sundays orienteering race at Hound Tor, Dartmoor I was wondering how my legs where going to hold up over the 7.9km 380m in soft conditions.  Off I went, quickly messing up the first control, confused about the earthbank that didn't appear on the map (later found lying under the control circle), and the control description of reentrant/boulder cluster, neither of which appeared on the map.  Finally relocated the crag off the ruined building.  Took a deep breath and off to #2, no issues.  #3 and #4 no real issues apart from a nasty climb down to the latter.  Path run to #5 with the benefit of having Rob Parkinson behind to close the gates.  A little high to #6, felt like more there than on the map.  Up and over to #7, legs feeling the pain on the climbs!  Dropped down to the road to avoid bashing back through the gorse, clean to #8 + 9.  Bashed through the gorse from #9 drifting west and was happy to see the gorse didn't cover the ground as mapped, waist high gorse at the control site not pleasant!  Then the disaster, misread the map to start with and thought the control was closer to the top of the tor, then realised and lost height, failed to make map fit at any point, again much more rock on the ground than mapped, eventually gave up looking for #11 and started on #12.  Just about to call it a day when stumbled on #12, so back up to #11, kept checking behind to ensure I had no problems on the way back.  Clean from there apart from slight miss to #21, ended up at the finish instead!  Not the greatest performance but a nice run on the moors never the less.