The World Cup Long distance was a very challenging race in may different aspects including physical and technical. I had set my mind on taking a slow and steady approach to the World Cup course as I did not know what to expect from it. It turned out to be a relatively good long distance course where certain route choices made the difference between first and fifth place.
To the first control I ran to the clearing and took a bearing from the end in order to hit the control because I did not want to miss it. I didn't know what to expect and I thought that it was going to be more difficult. Most of the elites went right on the line. I then stopped to decide my route to number 2 and chose to go straight because I didn't believe that I was fast enough on the road to make up any significant amount of time that way. Unlike Thierry Georgiou (who nearly always goes as straight as possible) I tried avoiding some of the climb by continuing left at the first road in order to pass between the smaller hill and the bigger one, and then continue down to the forest left of the lake. In this section I just tried finding the easiest way through because it was not very runnable. Due to the slow vegetation I tried staying in the white forest between the green and the lake up until the road from where I could stay on the right side of the green patch, and eventually find myself on the cut-line that was very fast. From that point I continued with a bearing to the clear section of forest, from where I angled towards the power-line which I followed a ways up until I tried cutting it to the control in a straighter line, but ended up veering back to the power-line to finish the attack. 3 was not very interesting. When I left to number four I made the mistake of trying to save climb by sidehilling through the cliffs right of the line, before continuing onto the path from where I headed with a rough bearing to the sort of spur with a rock and a knoll on it. From that point I headed to the small hill from which I then took a bearing to the control and drifted off a bit to the left. 5 was a bearing control.
The long leg, was... well long now that I look back at it (apparently 3.2km) but at the time I didn't really register that and just threw myself at it. The first plan that hit me was to go to the right around the really big hill the way that I had come down to 2 originally, to the road, up the re-entrant, between the hills, up the next re-entrant, and then down by the right side of the lake. (Needed to stop or else there would be no question that that was a run-on sentence). After that point I would continue up around the right side of the first little hill, then between the two other hills, up the re-entrant with the cliffs in it to cross through the next two saddles in order to reach the point where I could finally precision orienteer my way to the control. That unfortunately got scrapped as I wussed out and did not go right, right after the first hill when I was on the left side of the spur with green over it.
So I readjusted my plan and set off again on my journey. This time I continued straight into the clearings, and then along them with a little bit of climb until I was under the power line and made my way through the cliffs to the river. Which I crossed, then saw that there was private property in front of me, crossed again to avoid, then found myself once again on the wrong side of the river leading me to nearly cross it again, but I was fortunately saved by the sight of the little footbridge and the decision to take it. From there I ran up the road to the trail which I followed up until the lake, where I decided to get off and cross over between the two hills and onto the second half of plan A for control number 6. When I reached the point from where I had to precision orienteering into the control I took care to slow down, and pay lots of attention to every detail until I hit the control. I stopped nearly four times in that complicated section. When I entered I saw Matej approach the control at the same time, and I hoped that I had not flustered him, as I had started 10 minutes behind him and immediately after punching we both set off in different directions.
I am proud to say that I ran nearly the entire way the route that Thierry Georgiou took with variations around where I ran over the cliffs under the power-line (he cut to the road earlier and took the foot bridge) and then when we left the trail (he cut over the hill more). Matthias Kyburtz went the way I had originally planned to, and Gustav Bergman ran a variant of that.
To number 7 I tried running into the re-entrant, then along the cut-line, and finally around the left side of the green. A Finn caught up to me on that leg and I tried keeping up with him, so he helped me finish the attack into that control. Then we took his route choice to 8 which consisted of running to the path and then cutting straight through all of the green to the control. Going out of the control I tried once more catch up to the Finn but alas he was nimbler through the green and ran off, leaving me with only my rough bearing which I had been holding on to since I left the control. Looking back now I see that I recognized the hill with the clearing left of it, continued then to the left hoping to recognize something. Eventually I ran into number 6 which was very fortunate as I was able to finish the leg from there by running into the stream cutting through the details and cliffs past the trail to the hill. Over which I then ran and hit the control with a bearing. Unfortunately I did not take the correct route choice on this leg that Thierry Georgiou and Matthias Kyburtz took, which was very surprisingly straight. Analyzing this it helping me recognize that I should take this protocol more to heart. I undershot 10 a little bit.
To 11 I high tailed it to the path, and accidentally had to cross some cliffs, after which I hit the trail and attacked eleven from the south side of the second hill that is sort of connected to the big hill. Thierry Georgiou and Matthias Kyburtz (who were running together at this point) cut between the two cliffs and pretty much went straight. To 12 I again ran to the trail and cut off from it around the bend and nailed the control, which was also what the winner did! Going to 13 an Italian dude passed me and messed me up bit as he seemed to be swerving along his line a lot. Fortunately he was running in the correct general direction, so I hit the control. 14 was a bearing control that I hit relatively well. When I ran to number 15 then I first ran to the trail and followed it up to the cliffs, from where I ran straight until I hit the trail which I followed to the footbridge (which was a log), went straight over the hill, then veered right to the path inside of the re-entrant. I finished the leg by trying to contour from the left and sidehill into the control. I stopped a little bit short due to the ambiguous vegetation boundaries, and lost a couple minutes. 16 was obvious, and so was 17.
And thus ends my first episode of my World Cup experience. Stay tuned for part two of the long distance which will be released tomorrow, and will feature the story behind the map exchange including an epic chase to the finish control.
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