O-Festivalen H60 Middle (2019-06-29)

A good race under tough conditions, very glad to repeat my win from last year. Very interesting orienteering, the veteran classes got a 1:5000 enlargement which meant that it was in fact possible to orienteer into every control. I made a few smaller mistakes & hesitations, but no serious time loss.

Very good flow to #1 & #2, then to #3 I misread the control description, believing that the flag was NE of the knoll instead of in the saddle. A windfall made the passage between the two levels of cliffs difficult, this cost me a few seconds.

OK to #4, then I considered multiple options to #5 before deciding upon the route I took which would give me a very easy entry to the flag on the north side of the dot knoll. I did in fact spot the control almost from the path.

OK to #6 & #7, then I had my worst split to #8 where I should have followed the main yellow path much longer before contouring into the control. The way I ran forced me to climb up and down a couple of short, sharp hills.

I had big problems figuring out if #9 should be attacked from the west or east side, I though east looked a few meters shorter so I chose that route and win the split very clearly.

OK flow to #10 & 11, then I took paths as long as possible to #12 but I still had to walk a few meters on the steepest part.

Very careful to #13, did not want to mess up a good run!

I could have gone a bit straighter to #14 but the hillside down to the valley below looked OK and I knew there had to have been a few people in front of me breaking trail through the green to reach the road.

I could have followed the white ridge to the last control but the green valley was planted spruce, so flat and very runnable after a few people had passed through it before me.