Paul’s
Orienteering Blog
Monday 21 – Friday 25 July 2008
O-Ringen – Sälen, Dalarna - Sweden
My summer orienteering
holiday this year was a trip to the annual O-Ringen in Sweden, held this year
in the region of Dalarna, half way up Sweden and just a few miles away from the
Norwegian border in the downhill skiing resort of Sälen. This was my fifth Swedish O-Ringen, having
previously competed in 1990, 1992, 1996 and 2000. I travelled with a group of around 15 from
SLOW (and assorted other clubs), including 8 of us who were running the same
H21 course, which made for some good competition (and extensive splits
analysis!) during the week.
This was one of the biggest
O-Ringens held in recent years, with around 22,000 competitors. Accommodation was all arranged by the
organisers in ski chalets in the villages surrounding the event site, with
public transport to all events (and even with bus transport provided from Oslo
airport to the O-Ringen at the start and end of the week). Our 10-person chalet was located very
conveniently, a 15-minute walk from the main event centre in the village of
Lindvallen, and a 1-minute walk from the main Lindvallen bus stop which
transported everyone to the race sites each day. Other people were not so lucky with their
accommodation, with some people being situated a long way away from the centre
of things, although there was a bus line running during the week connecting all
the villages.
The orienteering was very
challenging and technical, as you would expect from Swedish forests. The terrain was quite varied, with the first
few days being quite similar to the Swedish terrain I have run in before –
quite dense low-visibility forest, with lots of marshes and rock and contour
detail (although not much in the way of climb).
The courses were quite tricky, and I lost quite a lot of time on day 1,
with around 10 minutes in mistakes (on 4 separate controls). However, despite taking 87 minutes for 8.1km,
I still managed to be the leading SLOW runner out of the 8 of us – although our
times were all quite tightly packed – as everyone found it quite tricky and
tough.
I had a much
better run on day 2, a 4km short race which I completed in 36 minutes. Although I was again the leading SLOW runner,
my overall position was not much better than the day before – possibly because
everyone else had found this course much easier than the day before. It
certainly didn’t seem particularly technical compared to the other days, but I
was still very pleased to have an almost flawless run – although the time was
still fairly slow as the terrain was quite physical again.
Day 3 was my
favourite day of the week and by far my best result. On this day, for whatever reason I managed to
navigate consistently well, hitting every control almost spot on, despite some very
tricky navigation in places. This was my most pleasing orienteering race for a
long time, with just a small error of just over a minute at number 12. The
terrain was really enjoyable, and completely different to the previous days – a
tough 200m of climb in the first 3 legs onto 
the open moorland of the
south-facing mountain (see picture below),
then downhill for most of the rest of the course through some quite tricky but
very runnable intricate slopes. My only
disappointment was to be beaten by 1 second by Tim Britton (having been 16
seconds ahead at the last control!).
On day 4 it suddenly all
went wrong and I had a bit of a shocker. Lots of mistakes, with bad time losses
at controls 1, 3, 5, 9 and 11 (though I did well on the even-numbered controls). This event started with a ski chairlift up
the mountain, and the race was then mainly on the rough open areas at the top
of the mountain with a significant descent in the last few controls. I was running far too quickly for my own good
for much of the course, and navigating very badly. Thankfully I had quite a bit of a margin left
to make sure I got in the day 5 chasing start (you had to be within 90 minutes
of the class leader), and I made it with around 13 minutes to spare.
Day 5 was completely different to
everything before, with a flat thick marshy forest and very tough running. I
had an 8-minute lead over next SLOW person (Phil Marsland) in the chasing
start, but made worst mistake of week, 10 minutes at no 2, just hunting around
for a small hilltop in some light green forest. Thankfully Phil
never caught me up, as it turned out that he had lost 15 minutes on number
1, but I did spend the rest of the course looking over my shoulder! I
tried to play it safer after then, and was very pleased with my navigation on
the very long 2 km leg 4-5 (without a path in sight – see picture right). It was a very hot day indeed (as it had
been for much of the week), and I was very pleased with my cunning route choice
from 9-10 which went 750m round a road and via 6 drinks points. I somehow managed to keep going to the end,
and even won the run-in split in our group for the first time all week – still
terrified of being caught up in the chasing start right at the death! My overall time of 98 minutes was quite slow,
but it was enough to give me the overall SLOW victory for the week (although
Tim beat me by over 20 minutes today, and would have done overall if he had
started on day 2).
Overall it was a very enjoyable week’s
orienteering, with some great tricky terrain, good competition and good weather
to boot.
H21-2 course
(1) Berga by norra – 8.1 km/65m – 87:51 (winner 52:01) – 178th out
of 270 Winsplits
(2) Berga by södra – 4.1 km/70m – 36:23 (winner 23:43) – 169th out
of 281 Winsplits
(3) Närfjället – 8.3 km/290m – 65:44 (winner 49:25) – 118th out of
272 Winsplits
(4) Hundfjället – 6.2 km/130m – 54:34 (winner 32:51) – 203rd out of
274 Winsplits
(5) Lindvallen – 9.0 km/140m – 98:32 (winner 60:02) – 197th out of
240 Winsplits
OVERALL – 35.7 km/695m – 343:04 (winner 227:40) – 155th out of 221
finishers Full results here
A few other
orienteering blogs: