Not last at orienteering!

We went to Nydalens’ Nydalten event today. This seemed to primarily be about the juniors’ Trimtex Cup match with some courses for adults sandwiched in the middle. Unfortunately this meant that, despite having put us at opposite ends of the start block, we had just 80 minutes for me to get round my 10k course and for Christine to do the 2k to the start. As Christine has kindly pointed out, I failed to do even my part in under 80 minutes and she consequently missed her run.

In fact, I managed to take longer that 10mins/k. Although by no stretch of the imagination would I claim to have had a clean run, I think it was actually speed in the terrain that was the main problem. There was one fun leg which was 2.5k as the crow flies. There was a path route the whole way not far from the straight line which just happened to go over Barlindåsen. It was only about 45m climb up but there was a 125m drop off the other side and descending has never been my strong point.

I also wasted time on a leg towards the end where an area marked as "rough open with scattered trees" actually appeared to be "trees with scattered rough open". This seems to be a common mapping technique in Scandinavia though where you’re not expected to use the vegetation to navigate.

On the bright side, despite taking nearly half an hour longer than the winner, I still didn’t come last in the results!

2 Responses to “Not last at orienteering!”

  1. Bjørn-Willy says:

    So you’re running in the woods, too….

    Maybe you are heading toSiggerud O-festival this weekend …? My kids and we are newbies with orienteering this year, and it’s really fun.

    Nice blog, btw

  2. Dave says:

    Hei Bjørn-Willy – small world (or country perhaps?). Yes – we’re running at O-festivalen. Perhaps we’ll see you there.

    David