Woo! And through to the final with a 9th in Heat 1 on Tipasoja Törmänkangas.
A good race, I even won 3 splits. But there were some less-good bits too, including a parallel-feature induced mistake to #10, that I at least could have recovered from better. Also wasn't super fast to #1, probably using the road in would have been faster.
My route choice to #2, which was something like a 2.5k leg involved a lot of marsh running. I think something else must have been faster if Simone + Tatiana were 2.5 min ahead, but not sure what exactly...
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Long qual course analysis
Alrighty, some more thoughts now, at a more relaxed pace than hurried-after-lunch. =) I am really happy to have made the final, and not just by the skin of my teeth (9 minutes behind the winner, but 9 minutes ahead of 15th place, too).
[leg time, time back, placing]
1 - [3:21, 1:15, 20] Not that awesome. I told myself to chill to #1 and just come up with a plan and then execute. The problem is that the plan wasn't that good. Plan = cross marsh, go straight, note yellow reentrant along road, during into linear depression chain on bearing. Reality = Cross marsh, ug, that steep uphill green looks *really* slow. So skirt, skirt skirt marsh, end up on forest trail on shelf, not on my map… come out to big road, decided I must be on where the forest track is shown coming in (it only extends 50m though on map) and pop into the control. Best change would have been to come in on major trail in the first place, second best change would have been to come up with a solid plan after giving up on 1st plan.
2 - [16:44, 2:26, 8] A loooong leg. I came to a full stop to evaluate before jetting off. I choose a route that strung together the edges of little marshes and then running through a big marsh at the end. The little marshes were great to run along, I was smoking it. But then I think the big marsh was just too energy sapping to be the fastest route. I'm still not sure what was the fastest route. There were versions both right and left that could be made to string together some trails… I did hesitate a bit on my approach to the control, felt rusty orienteering after so much just running through marsh!
3 - [1:25, 0:07, 7] Totally proud of this little leg! Not excellent visibility, but I kept on my bearing, aided in confidence by a pace count and didn't stop at the earlier control I saw that wasn't mine.
4 - [1:42, 0:09, 5] Went out to road, control was very obvious from there. Took sports drink and water as it was the first water control.
5 - [6:07, 1:15, 8] Blasting just north through marsh came out on trail, had to jockey a bit E on trail to get the north section of trail at a junction. Went E a bit on the upper trail to save some climb, then turned in, skirted between depressions then up to the high, first checked out wrong mini-hill before mine.
6 - [4:55, 0:31, 5] Blasting just left of the line, noting veg boundaries was very helpful on this one. Minna (3 min back) passed me on this one, raised my feistiness a notch. But then hitting the last veg boundary, was time to turn to my control, so I ignored where she was heading, spiked my control on my own, woo!
7 - [3:46, 0:51, 12] Hm, not so great, just hesitation knocked me off the pace on this one. I couldn't make great sense of the veg changed indicated on the map. And ok, the one I was puzzled by wasn't marked as distinct, so maybe shouldn't have been so attentive to it.
8 - [2:49, -0:10, 1] Woo! First leg I won! So Minna punched 7 at about the same time, and at least started the same way I needed to go. Ok, so time to try to keep up the running at her pace! Mostly worked, but she continued on past my control, while I had to go punch it, so lost her at that point.
9 - [3:20, 0:38, 8] Saw and upper route and a lower route and lower looked safer. So went with that. But it might not be as fast.
10 - [7:00, 3:26, 19] And ouch. I really did have a plan. Bearing to where veg boundary of semi-open and hashing meets big trail. Then over a little hill, hit ride, climb hill on it, drop into reentrant on far side, look for little W-facing reentrant. The problem initially: parallel feature. Instead, I went to the junction of the veg boundary between the white and hashing and the big trail. And there was a hill in the appropriate place, awesome. But then there wasn't a ride. Hm, I'll go climb the hill that seems to be in the right place anyways. So I do, and then I see a control, but maybe in a depression. Check it out anyways. Then scold myself because I knew it wasn't far enough, so I go further N. And I find another control, this time in a reentrant, but not mine. Puzzled, and panic is starting to rise…. Bop around a little bit more, decid to bail to NE-SW running road. Don't quite there when I relocate on an obvious hill, and then go off to find the control. Only afterwards did I realize I did a contour flip within the circle, which wouldn't have totally saved things but meant I might have recovered better.
11 - [3.37, -0.03, 1] I looked at my watch at 10, saw I didn't have much time to try to make it under an hour. With a predicted winning time of 45, I thought that's what I'd have to do to make the final. So I flew on this one. And spiked it. Faster than Simone, woo!
12 - [3:04, 0:26, 11] I still went fast for most of the leg, but I misread control description and thought I was looking for a hill. But then I found a very nice depression right where I was expecting my control. Panic, look around, try to make sense, realize a depression is circled on the map, recheck CDs, ah ok, go punch.
13 - [1:59, 0:18, 9] Just trying to fly on a bearing. Apparently not as fast as some others though. Slight hesitation as I approached because you couldn't really see the flag, although there were a lot of cameramen…
Finish - [1:07, -0.03, 1] I didn't really mean to take this as hard as I apparently did… I was tired going up the finish chute, and no calling out of my name because Minna was being interviewed. Noticed it had taken over an hour by my watch, figured it would be a close call to make the final… happy it wasn't!!