WOC Long Training course (27.07.2019)

I created the new base map for this refresh of the Gillingsrød map, so when I saw that Tom A. Karlsen (the WOC Long course planner) recommended the area as "the most relevant for the WOC Long event", I realized that it also had to be just as relevant for the WOC public races.

Today saw very close to record temperatures, this affected me quite a bit but it was still a nice run. I met one of the Norwegian female WOC Long racers while jogging towards the start, so she obviously also thought this terrain was the "real deal". :-)

As my track shows I hit the first control perfectly, but with no flag or marker. It took me 8 minutes before I made it back to the same spot, that's when I realized that (a) the controls were marked with a short yellow streamer, this one was lying on the ground and (b) the control boulder was a mapping mistake, it was about 40 cm tall and moss covered so I did not notice it on my first pass.

Halfway to #2 I did a parallel mistake, i.e. when I passed the first big marsh near the top of the hill I actually thought I was just south of the dangerous marsh, and when I climbed up the wrong hill and hit a cairn I though that was the cairn just south of the line on the next hill. From that point nothing made sense for a while until I relocated down in the valley and then decided to go back to my originally planned line.

I cut from #2 to #6 which I found easily, then towards #7 I had a perfect bearing until I failed to get the contours to match up properly and made a small detour south before recovering. I should have just kept to my original course!

#8 was easy, with a very good attack point near the stream junctions in the valley, but into #9 I once again detoured from a perfect bearing, here I probably lost 30+ seconds.

Another shortcut to #14 which I executed pretty well, then an easy climb up to the last control before I had to figure out how to get back to my car without a map: The original plan had me starting from a point on the road much closer to #15, but when the road was marked with "PRIVAT" and the local farmer told me to turn back I parked well outside the map I had brought with me.