Oslo City Cup #1 (2019-04-02)

Amazed to win! I made what I thought was a huge mistake to the first control, aiming for the wrong side of the river. When I realized this at the top of the stairs down to the riverside I had to run all the way around, but instead of losing a minute here I was just 6 s behind the best split. :-)

Fueled by anger and adrenaline I won the second split and advanced to second place just 4 s behind Ove Martinsen, then I dropped a few seconds to #3 and was passed by Richard Zeiner-Gundersen.

OK to #4, then a bad route choice to #5 where I should have gone up to the west side of the park and around the building, avoiding all the stairs. Lost 23 s to Ove and dropped to 5th place.

Going back down the same stairs allowed me to win the split to #6 and climb one spot.

OK to #7 and #8 where I advanced to 3rd place again, then I won the next two splits but I was still #3, but just 5 s behind Nils Hæstad who would end up in second place.

To control #11 I suspect that 2 or 3 runners forgot about the out of bounds marking on the main roads and therefore skipped the loop underneath the bridge: They were 20-25 s faster then the rest of us!

After a good route to #12 and another split win I gained the lead and kept it for the rest of the race. This route was the one that determined the race when 8 of the top 10 on #11 lost around half a minute.

Bad route to #13, could have gone much more straight over the grass, but I failed to see the opening in the OOB green NE of the flag.

Lost 2 s to #14 due to some hesitation out of the flag.

I got first or second best splits on the remaining controls, except on the finish sprint where I lost another 2 s.