Ozona/Ausekla nakts #1 (2012-12-10)

Snow.
Mass start.
Two world champions.
29 people.
Probably the best training this winter? The standart is set very high after this.
I am a little dissapointed that I didn't stay calm and made a lot of mistakes to my first controls (2nd, 3rd, 5th, 6th,9th). After that I gradually increased speed and mistakes were (almost) gone. Highest speed was certainly when I met Mr. Tsvetkov and ran behind him from 25th to 28th. The fact that I managed to avoid a small mistake where he didn't, gave me a little satisfaction. Unfortunately I did not have a chance to fight with anyone to the last control - it would have been fun!
Edit: As I am a huge fan of different forking methods, I was happy to see some difficult ornament on a map. However, the weak point of this forking was that some legs had to be run back and forth - considering snow, it was even more easier with all the paths. For some runners the forking worked in such way that they had to run back the same way they arrived immediately quite a few times - giving them some advantage over the ones who did the repetitive leg later in the course where memory has already faded a bit. The key of fair forking is to give every one the same course keeping orienteering challenging (without repetitive legs). But it was OK for a training.