World of O News
Today we have got the longest leg so far in Route to Christmas 2013 – and even with comments from the course setter. That’s exactly how we like it – all other course setters with interesting courses are of course encouraged to follow Revenger’s example and submit a nice leg – with comments and GPS-data of at least a few runners. This combination makes it even more interesting for the reader!
We are revisiting SM Long – a really nice course which was high up in “Course of the Year 2013″. Now we are looking at the longest leg of the day – leg 13 in M21E. To say it is course-setter Revenger’s own words (translated from Swedish): Leg 12-13 is not only the longest leg, but also the physically most demanding. Here you need to keep up both the speed and the concentration.
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):
Location
You find other maps from the area in omaps.worldofo.com here. See also latest additions in 3DRerun from this area in order to learn more about this terrain type.
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 have solved this leg below.
The analysis from the course setter:
The fastest route was straight/left [Editors comment: Dahlgren, yellow] and straight left/left [Editors comment: Bergman, green], but there existed a routechoice to the right that is just as fast, but which none of the top runners in M21 E chose. This is to the right along the edge of nedre Kvarnsjön. A runner choosing this alternative is the winner in M20 Niklas Alden – who had 80 seconds longer running time, but also had a different control with around 100 meters longer leg [Editors comment: Drawn in blue. I found this in the Doma archive of the winner in Alden – and as you can see it would be around 30 seconds slower even if they had the same leg]. Alden decides M20 on this leg.
The rightmost choice of Alden both saves energy (a lot of running on paths, save some height), and you do not have to concentrate that hard, i.e. you can rest your head a bit. This is important as the runners have been out for 70 minutes when reaching control 13.
Test running ahead of the competition should that the right alternative was exactly as fast as the leftmost alternative – only 6 seconds difference. But if you don’t earn time on the leg itself by going right, I am sure that you earn time overall as you save power and concentration
What do you think about this leg? Do you agree with the course setter?
Density map
See below for a density map of some of the ones who have drawn their routes so far [will be updated when some runners have drawn their routes].
Additional information
You find the complete map in omaps.worldofo.com at this location.
Route to Christmas series
The ‘Route to Christmas’ series at World of O has been very popular the last years – and I have therefore decided to continue the series this Christmas as well. If you have got any good legs in RouteGadget, GPSSeuranta or 3DRerun from 2013-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.
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.
One of the best legs ever, I have seen