The start overlooked a classic central European wooded valley with the town of Polanica-Zdroj nestling in the bottom. From there it was straight up – 65 metres of climb off the bike and pushing 
but once up it was a reasonably dense track network with lots of route choice around steeply sided valleys.
We were allowed to ride (or carry / push) in the forest too so a few of the legs saw me diving into the trees (mostly downhill) cutting through between paths rather than riding round. I think this worked for me sometimes and not others.
I was riding OK, struggling with the physicality (500 metres of climbing) but eventually blew up at 3/4 distance, sweat in my eyes and not thinking straight a made a stupid mistake at #18 losing about 7 mins. I was really tired and hot after that and continued to lose a few seconds here and there all the way to the finish.
The decent into the finish was fun but it was a long one for me – 100 mins….
