Welcome to my digital orienteering map archive!

My left ankle has mostly stopped hurting so I ran this local event. I had to walk up the steepest parts and then I added a stupid mistake to #3 where I hit the road just after the bend, then I just started running and interpreted the big bend (with path junctions!) as the first and kept running until I realized what I had done and cut into the forest. At this point I did not know exactly where I was so when I hit an indistinct path I thought I was north of the control and turned right. I lost about 1:15 here.
The "open yellow" underneath the power lines should have had green stripes covering all of it, it was very hard to run here.
Except for having to walk up the hill after #6, the rest of the race was OK.

We started with an 8 km bike ride, almost all uphill (40 min) to where the road ended, then a very steep hike to the old bear den (KP 4) before we hiked up to the nearest hilltop with a magnificent view of the Oslo/Bærum/Asker/Nesodden area.
Half an hour got us back up the hill to a sunny spot we had notedon the way down, there we had our meal break.
Back on the bikes towards KP 7 where the hiking part was significantly shorter and less steep, before the mostly downhill ride back to the car park.

Total: 26+ km, of which 4+ was on foot and 22 km on bike.

My MTB had a flat tire, so I decided to use my road bike instead, this meant that I had to take some more roundabout routes in a few places. (I have fixed the MTB tire now!)

Group hike to two fixed controls: 3.5 hours, 12 km, about 800m climb.
1.5 hours to #44, half an hour break there, then one hour along a more southerly route to #46 and a final half hour back to the parking.

Vi dro på tur med barnebarnet, kjørte til Åsebu og gikk derfra ned til strandkanten og plukket med oss postene frem til Brattestø (96-99) før vi gikk tilbake via 109-112. Med massevis av tid til å finne fine steiner og til å leke med den fine sanden så tok dette et par timer.
Etterpå jogget jeg alene tilbake til sommerhuset, via alle de resterende postene, slik at turen samlet ble på 12.5 km og nesten 3 timer.
PS. Jeg har tegnet inn Stolpejakt postene på mitt eget Asmaløy kart, det synes at flere av dem er blitt plassert ut et stykke fra der de er markert i appen.

Lost my head completely on #12 when I followed unmapped MTB tracks and totally forgot to check my compass each time I found a new (mapped or unmapped) path. Almost 5 min!

My running form is getting better and I managed to orienteer well for almost the entire race, with no serious mistakes:

I hesitated into #2, ran a few seconds in the wrong direction on a path between 3 & 4 and then I ran intentionally to the right of the lake to #5 even though I believed the better running surface on the east side would be faster. The rest was probably close to optimal routes with good execution.

We had to hand in our race maps so I have drawn my course on an 8 year old copy of the map, paths and vegetation were the most obvious differences.

Nobody close either in front of or behind me, so this chase start was just like a regular individual event.

I made two significant mistakes, on #4 where I was unable to understand that there was an additional fence underneath the bridge: If I had seen that, I could have taken the left path and avoided the stairs back down. Maybe 10 sec?

The other was near the end, where I on #17 had failed to plan ahead even though I had lots of pure running leading up to the control. I should have gone straight towards #18 instead of making a big detour around windfalls and denser vegetation. Another 10 seconds.

It is also possible that it was a few seconds faster to go right to #7 since that avoided the stairs and two sharp corners.

I was told by the organizer that there was snow on the top part of the courses, so I decided to take the shortest option which still let me do almost the entire climb before going straight down again. Severely tired legs now, plus I hesitated on the wrong dot knoll before locating #3. The rest was OK.

Mostly pure running!
I lost about 10 sec on #7 when I hesitated above the retaining wall while trying to read/understand the map (which is actually very good here!).
I also lost something similar when I managed to crash into a door jamb after #8, while I was reading the next control description instead of watching where I was running. The crash itself only took a few seconds, but the splits show that I lost time consistently from this point on.

My best race (so far) this year. :-)
I ran as fast as I could and made almost no mistakes:
#1 was way down the hillside, but I told myself that I was in the right area so I just kept going until I hit it.

Over the hill to #2 I believe my route which used the old/overgrown path for the middel part must have been optimal, except for the way I hit the path bend I aimed for about 20m to the left. 10+ seconds time loss?

Very good to #3, then I decided to take the road to #4, but the light green was so dense that it would probably have been faster to just run diagonally downhill, aiming for the open yellow past the green. I strongly considered taking the path up the hill, then attack the control from above, between the cliffs, but I decided that with my current running shape it was better to avoid nearly all the climb and instead aim from the corner of the open yellow: From there I could see a control flag on the boulder which is nearly on the black meridian line so I knew exactly where I had to be, then I spotted the boulders just before the control and hit it perfectly.

Up to #5 I was tired but aimed through the saddle over the hill and hit the flag very nicely.

Even more tired going over the hill to #6, so when I hit the path halfway I followed that as long as it went, almost to the end of the cliffs, and took a bearing from there. I verified my course when I passed the power line and spotted the cairn to my right, then ended by jumping directly down the cliff to the flag.

On the competition maps, the entire housing area between 8 & 9 was olive green, i.e. you had to run around. I first considered going left but decided that it was even more safe to go right. I don't think this made any difference in running time.

Crossing the green from the path into #10 was very wet and muddy, so I tried to find a better & more direct route back to the path, but this turned out to cost me 10-15 s since the middle green was closer to dark green/"fight".

Pretty good orienteering, bad running speed.

Very good to #1, then I ran too far to the right to #2 while trying to stay dry (I had been told before the race that "the area you guys are running in is totally dry!"), this meant that I had to climb over two extra contours. 10-15s?

Good route to #3, I intentionally aimed a little bit to the right so that I could cross the narrow marsh, then stay on the side of it down to the flag.

Over to #4 the race map had an OOB area which I aimed towards, then followed the streamer between the big and the little pond before taking a bearing to the control, using the saddle to my right to fine-tune the final approach.

#5 was drawn to be on the same contour as #4, but it seemed to be a bit higher up in the hillside.

Perfect direction to #6, the final part I could just aim at the power line pylon.

Good route to #9, then I ran OK to #10 & 11.

Back to #12 it was probably faster to follow the power line then take the indistinct stream to the flag, but my route via the path made for easier running.

My worst control miss was to #14 where I suspected that I was aiming a bit too far right but I decided to just go on until I hit the stream and then follow that up to the flag. Another 10-15 s?

I took too long to find the start triangle on the map, by the time I saw it and realized that I should have gone left to #1 I was already too far along. I lost about 10 sec here.

No alternative routes to #2 or #3, but when I left #3 to the west/right I hit the low fence and instead of reading the map again to verify that it was passable, I turned around and ran back and out through the gate. Another 5 seconds here?

OK routes to #5, 6, 7 & 8.

I took the shortest route to #9 but it was possibly a few seconds faster to go right since that route had easier uphill running on the road and avoided any extra climb.

OK to #10, 11,& 12.

There were two routes to #13, according to Livelox they were exactly the same distance and time!

Except for some slight hesitation to #15 the rest was OK.

Total time loss 15-20 sec, I was 3:42 behind my old club mate Eivind Hoff, so I'm still running far too slowly. On the other hand, today I was 2 minutes closer than last week since I had avoided any large mistakes.

Finally a race with no stupid mistakes! Now I just need to run enough in the forest to regain some of my old runniing speed, today my club mate Sören was over 7 minutes faster than me!

The last time I ran in the same forest was in O-Festivalen Long in 2016, at that time I won by several minutes, so I'm obviously not in the shape I used to be.

The vegetation had completely changed around #1, I slid past the top of the reentrant without seeing any indication of it, lost about 3 min.

Towards #2 I knew that I was going too far left, but after climbing up between the cliffs I still checked a control above me before turning down to where I should have known it had to located.

The rest of the race was pretty much OK.

One 30 sec mistake on #5 where I read the description to be on the outside corner while in reality it was inside. The orienteering was very easy, the fastest runners dominated.

It might have been a few seconds faster to go right to #12, otherwise my routes were all trivial.

Due to the rain forecast I tried to run with a single contact lens instead of glasses, but with the wrong strength: This meant that I had to stand almost still to be able to read small details, and it caused immediate problems when I failed to find the start triangle and ran past the opening in the fence to #1 while looking for it. Lost ~25-30 sec here.

#2 was a pretty even left/right choice so I simply kept going past #1.

With normal (much drier and no snow) conditions, the best route to #3 would have been to go between the buildings and diagonally over the lawn, but today the paved path was much faster.

OK route to #4, going right was marginally shorter but much more down and up again.

No route choices to ¤5 or #6, just pure running (which I did very slowly)

Going left to #7 was clearly better since that let me do parts of the climb on paved surfaces.

Easy routes to #8 & #9.

Up to #10 I was getting really tired, to the point where I stopped reading the map and cut right between the wrong set of buildings. Here I punched the wrong control, but fortunately suspected something was wrong and returned to it, verified that it had the wrong code before figuring out where I was. I lost nearly a minute here! On this control Richard Z-G overtook me by 1:30, but then he stayed more or less behind until the final run-in.

No route choices to 11-14.

I found the optimal route to #15: Left through the parking garage, over the bridge and then through the fence opening to the left again.

#16 was another 50/50 route choice, so taking the left option was clearly better since it allowed me to keep running past the controls.

Only one good route to #17, then I did OK on the rest except #22 where it was about 30m shorter to go right.

Decided to run even though my body was wasted from last night and a prevous stomach bug. I am actually very satisfied with my orienteering with the exception of #12 where I got too tired/lazy to do it properly, I.e. I should have aimed right to the path, then the path/ditch junction and then the end like I did it, except at that point I would have been much more secure and not stopped a few meters from the control boulder without spotting it behind some bushes, it seems like I lost 1.5 minutes here. Without this time loss I might have beaten my good friends Einar Jensen and Egil Wickstrand Iversen, but we were all 5+ minutes behind the winner Arild Kirkerud.

I am mostly happy with my orienteering here, with one very glaring exception, a 15-min miss on #4:

Mass start Night-O event, I had been in bed several days with a stomach bug this week so my intention was to simply jog around the course, but that plan didn't survive first contant with the enemy, i.e. all the other people starting at the same time. :-)

OK to #1 & #2, mostly OK to #3 except for dropping maybe 15 seconds in the path junction in the saddle: My compass was consistently off by 90 degree for at least 5-10 of those seconds, so I turned around and tried to check if I should be picking one of the perpendicular paths! I also failed to spot the flag/marker itself, lost another 5-10 seconds.

To #4 my plan was good: Go straight to the path, follow that to the junction, then a compass bearing over the top of the hill and down towards the largest cliff shown on the map, before diving into the green stuff. Starting off, I obviously managed to set my (plate) compass course wrong, off by 10-15 degrees. While passing the top of the hill the rain/fog hid (at least from me) the fact that we were not at the actual top, and when we dropped into the green, I found several smaller unmapped cliffs, each time thinking it had to be one of the other ones nearby. When I hit the open area which I later followed to #5, it had obvious tracks from logging so I assumed it had to be the big track shown and tried to take bearing from the bend.
I then gave up on this, ran east over several strems & ditches and finally found the real track, but even after going back to the actual bend and taking the same bearing, I could not find it.
Eventually, Karl Asmund Erøy who had been with me most of the race spotted it from a spot we had visited previously, just behind us, inside dense green foliage in a more or less flat area. Total time loss was around 15 minutes!

From this point I did a full reset and attacked the rest of the course, with good routes and very good execution. At the very end I just waved Karl ahead since my running energy level was extremely close to zero.

Still no running speed but the only way to get better is to train!

This was my first Night-O with headcam, I did mostly OK by always having a compass course and often trying to find trails going in mostly the right direction. My plan to #1 was to run about 40m further along the path and then aim for the huge boulder but I left too soon and when I spotted a cliff I first thought it was the one I expected to see to my right. When I checked my compass I realized my error and recovered quickly.

To #2 I mostly just contoured along the hillside, at the end the boundary between the white and green was very indistinct so I used the contours to stay just above the flatter area to my right.

Nice flow to #3, 4, 5 & 6.

I stopped too soon towards #7, expecting to see the elongated knoll leading to the control. Lost almost a minute here.

OK, to #8, when I hit the final path I knew from the direction it was going that I was south of the bend so I ran along it for a little while before going on. When I saw the ditch in front of me to the left I knew exactly where I was.

No issues with the final controls.

Youtube video https://youtu.be/6ZOEfJ7GD_g

The terrain had changed a bit over the previous 11.5 years, the first surprise was when the path/staris down past #3 has been abandoned and the entrance from above was almost invisible. I realized my mistake when the stairs was leading down in the wrong direction.

Between #7 and #8 the floating bridge had been removed so I had to run around "Pollen", the innermost harbor area. Down to #10 I read the map very carefully, verifying that I could skip part of the road around but by now this entire area has been split into multiple levels with no external paths between them! I suspect this is a kindergarten where the separate age groups are segregated vertically when outdoors. Instead of going back up I climbed over and down, then I almost got stuck in new construction and/or refurbishment around the control.

I think my route to #12 was OK, but I lost a few seconds when I missed the narrow passage west of the church where I had run in the opposite direction from 8 to 9.

#14 was my worst miss, ran into the wrong alley and decided to turn around.

Due to the missing bridge I skipped the last control (#16) since I had already run around the harbor once before.

I was extremely rusty tonight, this was my first run of any kind in almost two months, since I broke a rib in the beginning of January. It still hurt a bit but I could at least jog around this course.
It was a mass start with simulated relay forking, I immediately messed up by almost stepping on my first control (the NE one) without seeing it, when I then stumbled into the NW control I saw that it was in a reentrant and thought it had to be the one with the SW control, so I took a bearing from there and ended back on the track. I lost almost 4 minutes on this one control but then I could enjoy myself without anyone else around for most of the rest of the course.

Pretty good orienteering from this point even though I had to walk up most of the hillsides when the breakable snow crust made it too hard for me to run.

We found a few new path segments by the cabins in the south end, and then a new path going back SSW along the valley. This one is marked with white paint blazes but was still hard to follow in a few places, as can be seen from our track. This is almost certainly a dog walking round created by the locals.