Exploding Neil's head, a short 2015 Physically Strong blog by Captain Ahab

Neil' head will expand and explode when he reads this. I was thinking about the race and thought of Neil writing the blog and not giving himself some needed credit. So here it goes. Neil's an excellent navigator. He took us to CP2 at a slow speed and came up right behind the leaders. Even though the CP wasn't were it was supposed to be, he knew he was in the right place. If he would have listened to me we would have wasted more time back tracking. If we wouldn't have talked to another team I think he would have found it faster. We wasted many precious minutes here and went from 2nd place to fourth. Again we made time up through smart navigation and when a tough bushwhack landed us at where CP7 was supposed to be, he knew he was in the right place. If I would have checked the re entrant he wanted me to check better I would have found the CP without an extensive search of the area. We wasted so much time here. We made up so much ground through smart navigation while walking and riding slow. If CP 2 and 7 were not misplaced we would have shaved I think an hour off our time. Also if we weren't so sore from Quivering Quads we could have ran and rode faster. Again I threw some time on by not listening to Neil at CP9 by listening to another team that told us the CP was not in the direction we were headed, but Neil said it was and it was. Not a lot of time was wasted here, yet some was while I backtracked some. I cringe when Neil asks me advice on navigation when I know he is at a whole level higher than me and I haven't been following the map all day and it's hard for me to pick up the map and understand it immediately like he can. I'm glad he didn't listen to me or we would have finished later.  I also know Neil was pushing himself extremely hard physically and it was taxing his navigation skills, but he endured and made skilled decisions.  Neil is an excellent navigator and TeamBOR is lucky to have him.