Venla Relay Leg 2 (12-06-2015)

Venla relay - Leg 2

Was quite careful at the start and remembered that Jan had told me that I should use the long run out to look at the whole course and choose good attack points. This helped me focus and I largely ignored the other girls on the gaffled first control - it seemed that none of the girls ahead were going to the same control as me. It was important for me to see that mini quarry to my right so when I saw it I knew I must be close to the line and kept my head up.

The next 3 controls were quite simple, I focused on my own thing on #2 and #3 and didn't really notice the others. On #5 there were a few girls ahead of me and we left the path at the pit but I should have checked my compass more carefully. On GPS it looks like quite a bad miss but my time was only 38s behind the fastest time so I possibly lost 20s.

On #6 I should have had a better picture of the control circle - lost perhaps 15s here. #7 was fine. On #8 I knew I wanted to drop more height but it was hard to force myself to do my own thing and it also seemed quite rocky on the straight line. Was 1min behind the fastest time on this leg so lost around 40s possibly.

I was really hesitant to #9 and it was slow/hard to overtake on the rocky slope and I possibly should have climbed or dropped to find a bit where I could run faster. I felt very hesitant coming across to the control. For me, control 9 was the one marked #10 on this map, I think one gaffel had an extra control. I was 1min behind the fastest time again on this control, so possibly could have saved another 30-40s if I'd taken a more runnable line and had a more definite attack point.

The last 5 controls were quite good. So in total over the whole course I guess I could have saved 1min50 perhaps.
It was fun :)