Reading the title you might think that I am a bit overconfident, but after last night's run, anything is possible. It is a rather long time (at least a year) since I went orienteering in the night and I was appropriately hesitant at the start of my run. I did find control no. 1 quite quickly, unlike quite a few other competitors, but that was more due to a bit of luck than anything else. I noticed from the corner of my eye that somebody running parallel with me on my left suddenly did an about turn and investigated. 2 was OK, but 3 was a bit fraught. Amazingly, it would have been a dead easy control if only my sight was not as bad as it is getting. I failed to see the white around the control, it just looked like one mass of yellow and I was looking for it in the open. Again, the reflective rod on the flag suddenly gave it away, but not until I have been fairly everywhere in that bit of the map. However, after that hiccup everything went great. My confidence grew, my distance judgement improved, I managed to spot every important waypoint on all the legs and came in with what seemed like a long, but still a very good time. At assembly the grumbles were already going: some said this was too technical for night O, other friends just sat depressed at either taking 24 minutes for control 1 or missing one out. The time was good enough for first place, beating my perennial nemesis Ildi and all the others. This felt good. After the bronze medal at the Extra Long Champs in April, this was a couple rungs higher, and a good step towards being on the podium at the end of the year when they announce the combined championships results. Unfortunately, I will miss the Middle Distance Champs by being in Canada, so that leaves the Sprint in September and the Classic in October.
Reading the title you might think that I am a bit overconfident, but after last night's run, anything is possible. It is a rather long time (at least a year) since I went orienteering in the night and I was appropriately hesitant at the start of my run. I did find control no. 1 quite quickly, unlike quite a few other competitors, but that was more due to a bit of luck than anything else. I noticed from the corner of my eye that somebody running parallel with me on my left suddenly did an about turn and investigated. 2 was OK, but 3 was a bit fraught. Amazingly, it would have been a dead easy control if only my sight was not as bad as it is getting. I failed to see the white around the control, it just looked like one mass of yellow and I was looking for it in the open. Again, the reflective rod on the flag suddenly gave it away, but not until I have been fairly everywhere in that bit of the map. However, after that hiccup everything went great. My confidence grew, my distance judgement improved, I managed to spot every important waypoint on all the legs and came in with what seemed like a long, but still a very good time. At assembly the grumbles were already going: some said this was too technical for night O, other friends just sat depressed at either taking 24 minutes for control 1 or missing one out. The time was good enough for first place, beating my perennial nemesis Ildi and all the others. This felt good. After the bronze medal at the Extra Long Champs in April, this was a couple rungs higher, and a good step towards being on the podium at the end of the year when they announce the combined championships results. Unfortunately, I will miss the Middle Distance Champs by being in Canada, so that leaves the Sprint in September and the Classic in October.
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