Orienteering race (Night) 46:00 [4]
43-kavlen, second leg. Voimis had a bad day on first leg, so I started 23 min after leader and ran all alone in a dark forest, a lot like while doing training on my own. Controls were well hidden, so I had trouble finding two of them, like standing 5 m from the control wondering what the X on map should look like in forest. Finally found it hidden in a hole - saw punch unit, not flag/reflector. Never saw what the X actually was like. I guess X means a control hidden in a tiny rock hole? Anyway, losing time some meters from a control was a bit annoying, but didn't make a big difference - I was awfully slow and used too much time on hesitating instead of going steadily on. So we were 26 min behind the lead after my leg and I thought we never will get any decent placings and I went to tent and slept rest of the night. In the morning I was pretty amazed - rest of the team ran so well we were 16. Not a good result, but I expected much worse.
BTW I ran with lupine. I did both trainings with home build lamp but thought ti would be too risky to run a relay with it. Not because it might got broken more easlily than Lupine, no. It is just if I run with Lupine and it gets broken, it's considered just bad luck, but if I run with my home made and it get broken my team mates would leave me to Sweden, that's sure.
43-kavlen was well organized event as always. Map maybe wasn't as good (as well drawn, lots of funny cliffs help curves) as usually and some night controls were too well hidden, but it was nice race anyway. Too bad there is every year less and less teams. What could be done. If I remember right Bubo mentioned year ago the one reason is it's so difficult to get team due 43 average age limit. How about allowing too young teams. Like 427 years old team could compete, but they has to start 3 min after old enough teams, 1 min/year or something. It would make it easier to find replacement if someone gets injured just before the event, and no team has to mispunch just because they have too young team.
