Bad luck. Knowing what the terrain is like around that area surprised they set such an epic distance. Makes it too much a battle of fitness and not enough of orienteering I think.
The Norwegians always liked it long and tough. I remember having a chat to one of the Norwegian top runners quite a few years ago. He was criticising the Swedish long champs for being ONLY 24km long. Fair enough I suppost. That year the Norwegians had 32km. Despite being in fairly tough Norwegian terrain, the winner still went under 3 hours though. Amazing athletes.
Terrain was nice but tough. Norwegians make real long distance races as it shoul be with a winning time of 95 minutes. A long course doesen't mean that it's less challenging navigation wise, and with butterflies it gets even more middledistance like. Though the locals are better to see the good route choices and know where it's easier to run.
I was a bit surprised to see that the official positioned to make sure no-one took short cuts was none other than Cassie
So you took the short cut then ;-)
Good to see you around and hopw the Hammy will pull up nicely so you get ready for WMOC.
Yeh looked like cracker courses, you certainly know you've been in a race in norway. Don't suppose you managed to get a lift back to the finish on a motorbike did you blair?