Mini Mountain Marathon series results

I have recently taken part in a mini-Mountain Marathon series in the Peak District.  Along with my running partner Dave we took part in two out of the three events, enough to qualify for a series score.  Before revealing the final result I will give two quick race reports.  The events are all score courses with a 3 hr time limit, during which you have to navigate between controls with varying points totals.  The most points recorded wins the event. Points are deducted for being late.

Race 1 - Hathersage
This being our first event of this type we were too cautious, especially at the beginning.  We decided to skip a couple of controls for fear we would be back late.  It was a lovely day and the terrain was perfect running and I fulfilled an ambition of running along Stanage edge.  We both ran really well, too well in fact because as were were approaching the start/ finish point, we still had 30 mins of our three hours to go.  So we ran past the finish to pick up an extra control, but still finished with 10 minutes spare.  We covered about 15 miles in the 2:50 and scored 205 points.

Race 2 - Calver
We were determined not to finish early today. Unfortunately we did exactly the opposite.  We started well and picked off controls well.  I made a navigation error on a long run down hill and missed a path up to a control, taking the next path instead.  This wasted time working out where we had gone wrong and fixing it.  I was really struggling by the half way point; the course seemed a lot hillier than the first event.  We ran up and along Froggatt.  We then made a bold (and foolhardy) decision to pick up another disant control.  By this time I was tired and struggling and making more nav errors.  We missed another turning and went a long way out of our way, arriving back at the start/ finish 18 minutes late.   We were deducted 80 points as a result and ended up with a disappointing 100 points.

The series result
I really enjoyed the series despite the second race being hard for me and disappointing as far as the points were concerned,  but I would definitely take part again.  We finished in 30/32 in the series with a total of 985 points (although I have no idea how they calculated that!).  At least we weren't last.