Orienteering race (sprint-stage 4) 27:41 [4] 2.95 km (9:23 / km) +153m 7:27 / km
ahr:153 max:195 slept:7.5 shoes: O: falcons 2011
Got up early again so I could eat well before the race.
It was a rainy day that was suppose to stop around start time (but it didn't).
As usual, there was little in the way of administration. Fortunately i had done my homewood and researched it all on the web. My GPS got me there ok. i was there an hour before the race and was the only one there besides Vlad who had a pile of stuff but no car or other help. Vlad then went out to hang controls so no one knew what was going on. Fortunately, someone knew where there was a bathroom (had to drive to it).
Race time was delayed only 10 or so minutes this time. For the first time this weekend, I didn't have the first start. In my heat was me, Toril Nes, Mikkell Conradi, Francois Leondard, i had the same course as Francois. I knew Francois and Mikkel were faster than me.
The race started badly. Once again I had trouble finding the start triangle so was last off the line. I followed to the first control. Because there were forking I made sure I was navigating to the 2nd control. The problem was once in the woods it was too dark to read the map. On top of that the control line hid a crucial trail junction/bend. All of our group got misled as a result. It took me longer.
In the middle of the course there was a mess of controls, some of which we had to go to multiple times. This was total crap. It wasn't about orienteering but trying to figure out where the next control was. Was control was 5 and 15 which meant there were two '6''s lines out of it (6 and 6/16). Another horrendious example, control line for leg 16->17 went through the circle edge of 4/7 on the way to 8/17. On quick look 4/7 has a /7 which looks like 17 with the next contol having an 8 in it. I lost a boat load of time just standing at the controls trying to find what direction I was suppose to be going. Twice I had to run back to control to confirm which control i was even at because with all the numbers it was confusing to where I had just come from. By now, people from the heat behind me had passed me. I was still with Toril off and on. She was just ahead of me going to the final bunch of controls. There was another really stupid course design with 3 controls right next to the finish circle. The circles overlapped each other. I apparently skipped one in my haste to beat Toril. Despite not being able to find the finish control I barely finished ahead of Toril.
There were several people who mispunched with the middle section or the final control (bad course design).
Because of the sprint format, if you ran faster in your category per K then people in the higher heat you got to move up. Because of the mispunches several of us were dropped down to a lower level allowing slower people to move up. since results were screwed up and haven't been posted I can't compare per K times. The other unfair part is the people that moved up were on the shorter course and didn't have same bunched controls at the end where I mispunched.
GPS watch said I went 2.38 miles and 373 ft ascent (120m)