Fancy running around in a giant swamp with frozen hands and feet for three and a half hours? No, neither did I, but that is what I ended up doing yesterday on the lower slopes around Matterdale in the Lake District. This was the Copeland Chase, a small and low-key long 'O' event. Courses were on offer at about 10, 15 and 20 km, so I did the sensible thing for my first ever such event and went straight in for the long one. Genius. My only aim was to finish and I just about managed that, although my resolve was tested a few times. In general I was pleased with my navigation bar two out of 15 checkpoints, but my running was a bit slow. Steve Birkinshaw won for the fourth year in a row and was only 1h20 ahead of me. I count that as a relative success.

Will Horsley