Well... My dreams of winning outright didn't come true. I tried to replicate the preparation that I had for the JK sprint. I even wore the same socks. The start of my race went well. I was nearly tripped up on the way to the first. There was a control quite close on the same type of feature which was a little distracting. I managed to keep my head to the 4th control (I was leading here). Here there were other controls on nearby trees so after I punched I checked the code on my descriptions and saw it didn't match... It took me a little while to realise I had checked the 3rd code instead of the 4th. I think I let this little hesitation get under my skin. I only lost 4 seconds but I was running damn fast on the next leg and accidently missed the best route choice. I was still in a rush on the 7th. I went to the left because I saw the gap on the map. When I got there I could see no such gap. I wasn't calm enough to see that the green and the wall there were actually passable. I assumed it was olive green so I ran right around. To the 8th I can see from my GPS watch that I had totally lost my head. I ran full tit and then was about to jump some bushes but then stopped because it was olive green. Then I proceeded to run at 2min 30sec per km pace to the control. On the 9th I ran straight thinking there was a gap in the building, but nope. Then I ran back around the long way to the control. Now I could see Emil Folino Nielsen had caught me up 1min. Then and there I kind of lost motivation to push myself. I dawdled around the rest of the course having a few problems with closely placed controls. Emil never caught me right up, but Claus Bloch who had started 2min behind caught me at the 19th control. We both messed up the 2nd to last control (along with the entire elite field). I assume everyone had the same problem as me. I saw a control there when I was at my 12th control and figured it was my 20th. I'm glad I checked the code because our control was in the same place on the other side of the castle wall. I don't agree with this type of course planning. It seems in a lot of places the course planners were trying to trick the competitors into mis-punching. I pretty sure there are rules about how closely controls can be placed, especially when they are on the same feature. Of course you should check your control codes, but you shouldn't have to when you are punching a control in the middle of your control circle. If I had been running hard in the end I would probably be crying along with the rest* of the Danish elite team who had nearly all mis-punched.*Christian Christensen, Rasmus Djurhuus, Rasmus Søes, Christian Nielsen, Mikkel Lund.
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