I was not surprised that the quickest route was the straightest (via 13). I can’t see any advantage in contouring round to the left there. At the very best you could save 3 contours (15m) but in practice it is hard to ‘contour’ accurately and you often drift up and own a bit and often don’t save the climb you think you would. Look at the comparison of Nankervis and Doyle – Doyle went left and might have thought he was saving climb, but in fact he didn’t save any climb at all (count the contours).

Also ‘contouring’ is an inherently risky technique as it requires constant subtle changes of direction – that might be easy in steeper terrain (where it easier to see the slope and follow it) but on a gentle slope like that it is hard to get it right (especially when there are so many rock features to get around and patchy green). It much easier (navigationally) and safer to go straight – just use your compass to aim for that huge saddle – no need to read any detail on the map. Contouring requires you to read the map much more closely. Not worth it for just 3 contours.

Also the difference in rockiness and greenness between the straighter route (via 13) and contouring seems negligible to me (perhaps you need to have run in this sort of terrain before to realise that). At first glance the straight route does seem a bit greener – but it is patchy so I don’t think it would slow you down. Again if you compare Doyle’s route to Nankervis (near 13) , Doyle’s longer route doesn’t actually look any less rocky to me.

As course setter I can say you are pretty much correct. The right route comes into play because the runnability by the fence and the river to the right is generally good and it’s a long way in to a very tough elite course which might encourage some tired runners to take the easy way out of 16. But it’s a bit of a trap because the approach to the control from the right is very slow. Jan’s comments about execution are correct too. Also worth mentioning if running straight, approaching the control is quite tricky down the hill even though the visibility isn’t bad in this part. It’s very easy to make a parallel error here.

I’m surprised though that the best route runs through control 13. I would have stayed higher above 13, contouring around the valley to stay in the band of white with no rock or stony ground (roughly Matt Doyle’s route). Staying out of the rocky ground is normally important. Matt probably didn’t execute this perfectly but it’s still clearly slower than Brodie who cut across the main gully through the green and past 13.

The terrain is quite fantastic. An interesting story I was told about this area which readers might find amusing. This terrain was used as a model area for JWOC 2007. The story goes that on the plane to Australia for a training camp a copy of the map was handed around by the Norwegian coach. The map stopped with Olav Lundanes who studied it for the next 8 hours and refused to hand it over to anyone else. Perhaps Olav could confirm if this is true (or not) if he reads this :-)