Mud and hills

I did my first Hash yesterday. For those not in the know, this involves following a trail of flour blobs around the countryside in a baying pack. This was done on mountain bikes (although I believe the norm is to go on foot), mostly on glorious (and very muddy) single track.

I am not a particularly natural mountain-biker. I am not desperately good at the uphill bits and unfortunately the downhill bits tend to scare me, which only leaves me with the flat. Also, within 3 minutes of setting off yesterday, I broke the cardinal rule of off-road riding: Look at the path you want to take AROUND the obstacle, not AT the obstacle. This is very sage advice. Your hands automatically guide the front wheel in the direction you are looking, so if you are staring at that tree stump in the middle of the path thinking "gosh, better steer clear of that", you can pretty much guarantee you will pedal straight into it. Which indeed I did. Thereby marking myself out as a dreadful amateur. Of course, they'd have guessed my amateur status anyway at the first hill, what with the whimpering.

Hashing is not a competitive sport. This is just as well.

Today's activity was orienteering in north London (this time on foot). The route started at Ally Pally, but also dropped in to Highgate Woods and Queens Woods as well. It was about 10km all told, with some fearsome hills. The second checkpoint took you from the car park down near the gates right up to just in front of the BBC mast at the top of the hill, which I think was somewhat sadistic on the part of the people setting the course.

This one was a competitive event, where I wowed the crowds by coming first out of all the girls who entered the event. Sorry, what was that? How many other girls were there? Um, I forget now...