Norsk Mesterskap Orientering


Last weekend the Norwegian National Orienteering Champs took place in Beiterstolen - 5 hours South of Trondheim, not far from the Jotunheimen National Park. We headed away from Trondheim at about 5pm on Friday night, after I had arrived home from work and beavered away to make a pizza and some cookies for us to munch on during the long drive.

At Oppdal we met up with Bård and Ola, and they joined us in our car to make our trip a little more environmentally friendly. We arrived at a cosy cabin at about 11pm and went straight to sleep. Chris and I were both feeling tired after a long week at work, and in the morning we had quite early starts to deal with.

A plush grass roofed 'cabin' at Beiterstolen - the one we were staying in was rather more modest than this little mansion.

The arena at Beiterstolen - they even had a big screen with GPS tracking following the competition, pretty impressive technology for following orienteering.

I really wasn't in the mood for orienteering the next morning, but I was entered so I didn't have much choice but to turn up. It was a middle distance at least, so not too long. I headed off to the start, aware that it was supposed to be a 2km run to the start. However, after running 2 km I got to the start and no one was there! I quickly realised I had somehow taken the wrong way and I was now at the start of the final for the afternoon, not the morning qualification start!

So I had to run 2 km back, then 2 km to the real start! By that stage I had missed my start by almost one hour, and the time from my real start is the one that was recorded in the results! Opps! I actually enjoyed my run after all that, it was tricky and very flat, which was great given I was very tired after already running 6 km!

Chris finished just after me - he had a disaster of a run and missed out on qualifying for the final. Oh well, we enjoyed blobbing around for the afternoon and went for a walk to take in the amazing autumn colours in the mountains.
Emily is thinking "Autumn in Norway is really pretty"
Red and yellow trees, getting ready for snow again!

The next day was the relay and Chris ran the first leg in the first Wing team, while I ran in the 5th men's team. The women's Wing team came 5th overall - there are about 50 teams entered, so it is a tough race. Chris wasn't particularly pleased with his run, but the other two in his team ran well, so they finished in a respectable 6th place.

The men ready to start the relay race on Sunday

It really was ridiculous how fast the men started - not a lot of map reading going on at this stage. Chris sneaks in from the outside here to get near the front of the bunch.

On the drive back home we took this photo looking toward the famous Beseggen ridge. The photo doesn't really do justice to the beautiful autumn colours.

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