Ulvedalen (29.07.2021)

Ran this training course during the heaviest rainfall in several years, the forest/heather/slabs & rocks were extremely wet.

Nice & easy start to the first two controls, nice forest and good mapping.

#3 had three main alternatives: Right, down to the big track and very easy into the control, straight through the two green areas and the logged field, or left like I did, using the paths as much as possible. Particularly due to the extremely wet forest, my route was probably the best.

#4 was of course quite boring since I just had to climb back up the nearly 50 m I had just dropped down, taking the control from the left made it very easy to spot.

Around the edge of the cliff and straight on to #5.

I aimed a little bit to the right to #6, while counting the ditches I crossed.

I considered going around right on the road to #7 but decided that it would be too boring even if it might have been faster under the current conditions.

I just jogged from the finish to the second start triangle, here the forest was so dense that I lost my direction and hit the indistinct path, but from where I got back into the white&light green I could see the hill with the control.

Easy to #9 on nice hilltop slabs.

I knew I had to aim a little to the left to #10, the middle green could easily have been mapped as dark but as soon as I got into the light green the forest was classic old growth planted spruce with very little understory, i.e. among the most runnable parts on the entire map.

I never found the indistinct path alongside the marsh to #11 so I just ran in the open yellow part. This was very heavy going with all the water coming down.

OK to #12, 13 & 14, but an average running speed of 12.5 min/km (including the transport delay to the restart) is among the slowest I have ever recorded, particularly on a mostly clean run.