Comments on: Route to Christmas: Day 15 2022 https://news.worldofo.com/2022/12/15/route-to-christmas-day-15-2022/ Fri, 09 Jan 2026 09:51:34 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=4.2.39 By: Jan Kocbach https://news.worldofo.com/2022/12/15/route-to-christmas-day-15-2022/#comment-133289 Fri, 16 Dec 2022 21:33:27 +0000 http://news.worldofo.com/?p=18799#comment-133289 Thanks a lot for the tip, Felix, coming up tomorrow!

]]> By: Uku https://news.worldofo.com/2022/12/15/route-to-christmas-day-15-2022/#comment-133286 Fri, 16 Dec 2022 12:08:49 +0000 http://news.worldofo.com/?p=18799#comment-133286 As I ran that course I can add that one of the factors causing both right-sided (southern) variants to be faster was that north sides of the hills had much more small bushes and rough vegetation while south sides was generally more open and faster. Also hilltops were more similar to north slopes and therefore staying on the ridge didn’t pay off.

]]> By: Felix Hunt https://news.worldofo.com/2022/12/15/route-to-christmas-day-15-2022/#comment-133284 Fri, 16 Dec 2022 07:00:39 +0000 http://news.worldofo.com/?p=18799#comment-133284 Hi Jan.
I was looking for a good NZ route choice to submit and I remembered the Ultralong earlier this year in the Castle Hill region. This map is called Hogsback and the bush on it (native nz bush) is quite slow. This long leg (10 – 12) came about halfway through the course and people took a variety of routes. Unfortunately, due to the limited field, there is not alot of gps available to analyse but it does include Matt Ogden who won JWOC back in 2012 and national team runner Joseph Lynch. The livelox is https://www.livelox.com/Viewer/Hogsback-Ultralong-Hogsback-section/Course-1?classId=521403&leg=11&tab=legView

And the winsplits is http://obasen.orientering.se/winsplits/online/en/default.asp?page=table&databaseId=84547&categoryId=1

Joe Lynch was the fastest runner on the day but he took what is likely a slower route choice up the stream and through the bush to the left, which although minimising climb, involved a lot of bush bashing. I was surprised to beat Matt on this leg (considering how much slower I was on the rest of the course!) but I think I may have taken slightly better micro route choices along the first hill and avoiding the bush going up the spur halfway through.

The conditions for this race was very cold and later in the day it started hailing and got very windy so many later starters were deterred from going along the top due to the extreme conditions up there. The valley in the bush was much more sheltered.

Obviously since there were not many routes uploaded to livelox it is hard to draw conclusions about the leg but I think it is still an interesting leg to look at.

Merry Christmas!

Felix

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