Comments on: Route To O-Season 2020: Day 53

By: Knut Wiig Mathisen

Knut Wiig Mathisen — Wed, 06 May 2020 17:13:46 +0000

NTNU’s speed 4:36 km/h for the entire leg is impressing. It seems clear that the difficult green and green-striped entrance to the control didn’t slow NTNU and his group down significantly (although the average speed probably was below 4:00 min/km before starting the final approach). I also think the right route-choice looks tempting, it is only some 80 meters longer than left and has better runnabiliity and is easy to execute optimally. Clearly right is faster than the route-choice of Linne. However, right has at least 20 meter extra climb which corresponds to another 140 m, and that will most likely make right slower. This is quite typical for many different types of terrains, especially in spring, difference in climb is more important than difference in “map-runnability”.

By: Jan Kocbach

Jan Kocbach — Wed, 06 May 2020 12:59:31 +0000

I agree that going right is probably better than it looks here, but note that you use quite some time to get up to the road on right compared to left, so I definitely think left is a very good choice, here, better than one may think at first sight, and probably the fastest choice?

By: Agnar Renolen

Agnar Renolen — Wed, 06 May 2020 12:44:57 +0000

Interesting leg, but it is hard to judge from the GPS’s what’s the best in a relay, particularly in darkness, as your route choice in many cases depends on what the other teams around you do. Most runners will still run faster on a less optimal route together with a bunch of other teams, than take a faster route alone. Surprised not to see more of the better teams do the safer right route choice, but again it depends on the openness of the terrain and what the leader of the pack does (most likely Oleksandr Kratov in this case). OK Linné does a decent split on a partly right choise. Could he have done better by going all around on the track; he seems to hesitate a bit in the beginning.