Route to Christmas: Day 11 2009

Todays leg in Route to Christmas is a very long leg from the Australian Champs Long distance 2009 – organized by Bendigo Orienteers at October 3rd. The chosen leg is leg 16 in course 1. Thanks a lot for the tip to Andrew Lumsden!

Here are some comments from Andrew about the terrain: The area is eucalypt forest, the rock is granite. The following are relevant when considering route choices:

• The white forest, bare rock and open areas are very fast – going around slow run or rocky ground areas is an option;
• Visibility is generally less than 100m – there is potential to lose significant time if you lose contact with the map;
• The ground is not soft underfoot, so climbing hills is faster than some orienteers might be used to;
• Control 16 is less than 10 minutes from the end of a race with a 90 minute winning time – you are likely to be tired!

The leg is as usually first provided without routes – you may take a look at it and think about how you would attack this leg (if the image is too small, you may click on it to get it larger):

Webroute

Next you can draw your own route using the ‘Webroute’ below. Think through how you would attack this leg, and draw the route you would have made. Some comments about why you would choose a certain route are always nice for the other readers.

Then you can take a look at how the runners who have drawn their route choice solved this leg:

Complete map in Omaps.worldofo.com

You find the complete map and Routegadget info in omaps.worldofo.com at this location.

Omaps.worldofo.com

The ‘Route to Christmas’ series at World of O was very popular the two last year – and I’ve therefore decided to continue the series this Christmas as well. If you have got any good legs in RouteGadget from 2009-competitions – or old forgotten ones which are still interesting – please email me the link at Jan@Kocbach.net, and I’ll include it in Route to Christmas if it looks good. Route to Christmas will not be interesting if YOU don’t contribute.

There will be no analysis about the best routechoice for each leg – you can provide that yourself in the comments or in the Webroute. Not all legs are taken for the interesting routechoice alternatives – some are also taken because the map is interesting – or because it is not straightforward to see what to do on a certain leg. Any comments are welcome – especially if you ran the event chosen for todays leg!

Note that there may be some errors in the Routegadget data (sometimes somebody draws a route for another runner just for fun). Please add a comment below if you spot en error.