Category: Orienteering

Korttelirastit Heureka

Start -> #1: along the rail-road in front of Heureka, then along the street might have been better. My route is more scenic along the river.

#5->#6 route choice between left or right side of the rail-road for the long straight bit. Close to the control I slow down at the right smaller road/path towards #6 but then I fail to make the turn there.

#8->#9 and #9->#10 on both of these legs the left route choice seems better in hindsight. Especially my S-shaped route to #10 does not look good.

6km course, 9km route in 48min48s or 5:22/km. 11th out of 86 runners. Around +2 C, windy, and snow/rain at the start.

2015-02-22_korttelit_heureka_qr_splits

Korttelirastit, Hakaniemi-Kruunuhaka

Sprint-O on familiar streets today. The 5 km course was composed of two sprint-courses, 2.4 km in Hakaniemi and 2.6 km in Kruununhaka. I didn't use a compass today 😉

The Polar V800 GPS did not work great on the Hakaniemi map and I had to correct the GPS-trace a lot to get this result. Mostly OK going, but out of #12 I took the wrong path down from the control-hill, assumed I had hit the right street leading towards #13, and ended up close to the forbidden area (Hämeentie). Green arrows show the correct path, probably up to 2 min lost here.

2015-02-15_korttelit_C1_qr

On the second course I didn't make any major mistakes. #3 was hard to say if it was reachable only below from the sloping hill, or also from the top along the much easier terrace with a fence. I took the slower path from below and then climbed the fence after finding the control. The way out from #8 towards #9 seems awkward and slow, but maybe there is no route directly south out of #8?

Total time 47min 22s for both courses. 12th place out of ca 63 runners.

2015-02-15_korttelit_C_qr

Espoorastit Mikkelä

The last Espoorastit and fitness-orienteering event for this year. But there might be some city-sprints during the winter.

Pretty steady going with no major mistakes. Control #6 is the best split, the others look pretty bland, but the overall result is good since I am 16th out of about 100. The long straight path south of the #2-#3 line would maybe have been faster and easier. I almost ran past #8 before turning back. Close to #11 it was hard to tell where I had crossed the path+river.

2014-10-26_ER_latokaski_qr_splits

Itärastit Latokartano

This was the last itärastit event for this year. See you next year in April again!

#2: wrong direction and slow pace out of #1 is probably the cause of the bad split.

#4: completely lost it when almost inside the control circle. Through to the big road and even ran along the road in the wrong direction for a bit...

#11 down the hill too much to the north, then looked for the control in the wrong place before I found the bend in the road,

#15 tried to look for the path marked with a thick dashed line, but there are many paths and it's not clear which one to follow. Might have been faster to simplify the plan and run to the big road behind #10 first.

2014-10-18_ITR_latokartano_qr

Itärastit Kauhala

2014-10-11_ITR_kauhala_qr_splits

Had to use a hand-drawn map, since they had run out of printed maps.

Towards #1 I am correctly on course but then run down the hill to some big stones which were not the correct ones. Probably +2 minutes and the second-worst split.

#5 is jointly the best split (with #9), but I would have liked to stay along the edge of the blue swamp and not drift right and high up on the hill.

#10 is the worst split, but a short leg so not that much time lost. Maybe everyone else used the two paths and the flag was clearly visible from the second path?

Overall 10th out of 62 runners which is OK.

Espoorastit Latokaski

2014-10-05_ER_latokaski_qr_splits

Maybe a bit straighter to #1 would have been better? Then a slow S-bend avoiding the wet(?) bit between #1 and #2, which was very slow. Similarly straighter out of #2 towards #3 would have been faster.

Surprisingly #4 is the best split - probably because someone else was in front of me until just before the control...

The route choice down the hill from #4 towards #5 was not fast, and I had to backtrack and look for a place to cross the stream. Rounding the swamp to the north would have been an option too. Then close to the control I climb the slope to slightly the wrong cliff loosing a little time.

#7 through to the finish are all quite straightforward. Just after #7 I almost hold the map 180-degrees the wrong way but quickly correct my mistake. Before #9 I follow someone else onto the yellow field when staying on the path would have been better.

Itärastit, Nuuksio

2014-10-04_ITR_holma_qr_splits

+3min loop when just inside the control-circle at #3. I blame other runners that distracted me.

+4min loop east of #5, also from within the control-circle, because I thought I had crossed the swamp west of the control and needed to look for it more to the east.

+2min at #7 because after the big swamp it was difficult to know where exactly through the green thick area one approached the control, and I mistook the westerly big stone for the more easterly one directly on the #6-#7 control-line.

Without the mistakes that cost +9min a top-10 placing would have been possible - well maybe next time...