15-Stafetten 14 etp (2013-06-08)

Second place in the 15-Stafetten relay!
(I didn't get my race map so I have drawn my own course on top of a club mate's longer course)

My club improved one place from last year when we came 3rd, this year we were beaten by Raumar who ran extremely well on the last 3 legs, particularly #13 where they gained the lead for the first time.

I started about half a minute after them on my 14th leg, except for the second steep uphill towards #1 I never saw their runner, in the end he extended their lead by nearly two minutes.

I did consider going all the way around to the first control but the direct option didn't require many extra contours and I've never been much of a road runner anyway!

I lost about 30 sec on #2, du to the ride which I had planned to take towards the control being invisible in the mapped location, i.e. I thought I was following it but ended up too far right.

Difficult route choice to #3, I believe I found an OK solution but as my track log shows, the speed dropped in several parts due to rocks and cliffs.

Easy to #4, ran past the path/creek junction until I could see the small cliff, then cut down.

Contouring towards #5, then an obvious groove leading into the control.

Turned around 180 degrees to avoid the cliffs, then very easy to the spectator control.

Easy #7.

On #8 I should probably have gone a little bit north of the line, that way I would have avoided a couple of spurs. 10-15 sec?

Easy to #9

Running towards the last control I hit the end of the little cliff and got stuck in some vegetation, when I got out of the bushes and hit the huge path trampled by all the previous runners I felt very silly: I should have known that there had to be something like that at this point! 15-30 sec?

Total time loss was probably around a minute, my final leg time was slightly faster than the winner of the first leg (who ran a forked version of the same course).