Thea Lillehov

Yesterday's long distance b-final was much better than the qualification race. I worked really hard on some mental things the evening after the quali and the morning before the b-final, so in good time before the start I started looking forward to do orienteering again. My goal was to do basic orienteering again, not focusing on runnning speed. Due to this I was preparing and concentrating before the start in the same way as I do at important competitions.
The two first controls I ran very carefully, maybe too carefully, but at least I did not do mistakes and found a good rhytme. On the fourth control I lost the emit-back up. On the way to nr. 5th I struggled a bit fixating it again and did not focus completely on the orienteering. Of course that lead to a mistake, but I could read my self in again after not too long a time. Except for nr. 9 where I went down from the hill too early, the rest of the course was very okay. I had no problems interpretating the map and enjoyed the orienteering all the time. I focused on simple things like keeping in touch with the map all the time, reading everything since it was so a challenging terrain. I was running a faster speed, but not 100%. This worked very well. This will also be my goal for the middle qualification on Friday - orienteering first, speed second.
The course yesterday was one of the most beautiful and challenging courses I have ever seen. Of course the b-final had no butterfly, but for the rest it was just great. It had everything. Sand, seelike marshes, open speedy forrest, green areas where you could still run fast. And almost everywhere detailed contours which did not allow you to take time off. You had to be one hundred procent concentrated all the time. Of course the b-final is not a important competition, but it's nice that it still got a challenging course!
Map will come!