7. Walking/Hiking 4:00:00 [1] 15.7 km (15:17 / km) +250m 14:10 / km
I arrived in Feldkirch 10 hours before my start, and the innercity was restricted area, so time for a little walk in the surroundings.
It was actually a while ago that I visited a country that I visited never before, but now I've added Liechtenstein to the list. I didn't manage to buy a map of the area, so it was a bit of a random walk :
Feldkirch - Nofels - Schellenberg - Mauren - Tisis - Feldkirch
1a. Orienteering (races) race (Feldkirch) 15:04 [3] *** 1.8 km (8:22 / km) +10m 8:09 / km
City sprint in the old town of Feldkirch.
I totally had to get used to the hectical start, normally entering the boxes for the last minutes are some moments of relaxing, but now....
About 15-20 people were starting every minute. With 2 clear/check controls that means there is about 5 secs for clearing and checking. After that you need to find the right piece of control descriptions also within one minute with 20 people packed on 10 sq. meters.
The organisers at the start must have been completely worn out by an hour or so, I hope they had some replacements ...
At the end of the startboxes there was no other startline to see, but also no maps. We were told that the maps were to be picked up at the real start. I was on the front of the "field" so when the clock beeped I started running on full pace, made it down the stairs (maps were in a tunnel under the main street) grabbed my map and was stopped there by an official, because we had to wait for another clock to beep :-((
The real start was a pedestrian road crossing under the main road-crossing so there were different exits. I didn't manage to keep my mind organised with all these hectics and picked the wrong exit. Even more unfortunately the first 100m looked kind of identical. By the time I relocated and found out that the only way was back through the start, the group 3 mins after me was already starting.
I was a bit demotivated by this, but managed to recover and do a really nice run for the rest. I never did this before in an area like this. The streets were not very crowded, apart from all those O-runners. But still other people, and a bit of traffic were a factor to count with. After crossing the river we got to some parkland, which was slowly transforming into a mudland, but the run-in was great to do
It was only 15 mins, but for me quite a big experience and if the occasion is there, worth another trip