World of O News
Today’s leg in Route to Christmas 2023 is a very long leg from the women’s course in the Swedish Championships Long distance. Thanks to Björn Johansson for the tip!
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.
As you can see, the fastest route seems to be running around to the left, avoinding climb and also trying to avoid the most stony areas. This did seem like the most obvious choice for me when looking at the map without being in the terrain, but with such a long leg it is always difficult to trust your decision. Also, execution is key here – many of the top runners did mistakes either into the control or on the leg. Below you can see the variants colored.
Finally a direct comparison of some of the routes. As you can see from below, Alexandersson’s route to the left seems to really be the best, it is not just all about running speed. Also, Tove does doa a mistake towards the control – but so do several others….
Density map
See below for a density map of some of the ones who have drawn their routes so far (available during the day when some readers have drawn their route).
Additional information
You find the complete map in omaps.worldofo.com at this location.
Route to Christmas series
The Route to Christmas series is a pre-Christmas tradition at World of O – giving the readers the opportunity to do one Route Choice Challenge each day from December 1st until December 24th. If you have got any good legs in GPSSeuranta, 3DRerun or Livelox from 2023-competitions, or old forgotten ones which are still interesting, please email me the link at Jan@Kocbach.net, and I’ll consider including 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!
