Orienteering race 38:02 [5] 6.7 km (5:41 / km) +70m 5:24 / km
slept:7.5
WRE in a very nice new mapped forest. I was physically strong today but I made too much mistakes to aim for victory. It already started towards control 1. I had seen Jeroen VDK, who started two minutes before me, go into the forest on the left side of the trail directly after the start. I picked up my map at the start and did the same. I looked at my map and suddenly I ran towards a fence. I didn't understand why there was a fence because if I was running correctly I should not pass a fence. After some time (20-30 sec) I realised where I was and that I shouldn't have gone to the left of the trail after the start but to the right. So for control one I immediately lost 55 sec. Never trust another runner! I was really pissed after this mistake but could focus again and my legs were feeling pretty good so I could push and was running well. At control 6 I caught Jeroen VDK but then at control 7 we lost around 30 sec (didn't found the control immediately between all the depressions). The following controls I was a bit slow in attacking the controls so always lost some seconds and towards control 11 I took the wrong routechoice, I went straight but should have gone along the trail at the right side (Jeroen VDK did this and could catch me again after I had run away for about 25 sec). The straight routechoice was tough so I had to recover to control 12. Afterwards I took the lead again and made another gap of around 20 sec with Jeroen but at control 16 I made another mistake of 30 sec so Jeroen was back in front of me. I caught him again and towards the end the attacking was not 100% for all controls. Still the race was ok but with those legs and certainly without the stupid mistake at control 1 it should have been a better result. Placing 8th, 2'24" behind the winner.