Ås by Night & Fog Cup Finale (29-03-2016)

The mistake of the year already behind me?

This was the finale of the Ås winter O series, with a chasing start where I was 16:30 behind the leader due to skipping too many races this winter, but I started out OK to the first and second controls (I started my watch too late, just after the first control so the initial track is not correct.)

Nr 3 was the first control of a phi loop and this is where I really blew it:

I refolded my map as I was leaving #2, and while doing that I flipped it around and started to orienteer from #3 to #4! I hit the path going uphill and got that to fit quite well with what I expected halfway to #4, then I left the path in the left bend and started looking for the control area. After a few minutes I ended up on top of the big cliff, climbed down to see if I could relocate by finding the path & power line below #4.

When nothing fit there I finally realized that I had turned the map upside down, and decided that I had to be by the big cliff halfway between 5 & 6, i.e. making a parallel mistake as well!

Since my plan now was to cut over the knoll due west to the path I was happy to find a path just over the top, and followed this far too long trying to make it fit with what I expected to see, but I decided that just had to keep going until I could relocate properly.

At this point I was almost down to the road and still had 2-3 minutes back to where I found the control after spending over 14 minutes, almost 10 minutes more than the best split time.

I tried to pull myself together, didn't see the second path towards #4 but found it OK, then I meandered around a bit back to #2/5 where I met a couple of other runners.

Those guys helped me pick up some speed to the next controls but I was alone again at #9.

OK but very slow uphill to #10, this is where my lamp started to fail and dropped down to emergency light level, i.e. barely enough to read the map.

Without running light I had to take the path to #11 but I left it far too soon and when I hit an indistinct path I believed I was too low and ran further uphill.

I lost 5-6 min here.

Towards the last control I tried to cross the dam at the NW end of the pond, but it had an open spillway in the middle where the water was going over so I decided to turn back and dropped down into the gully and around via the finish line area.