After a not perfect race yesterday, my lead in the over-all melted down to just one minute. So the goals for today where 2: try to conserve some time of this advantage in order to win the 6 Days and being fastest of the Austrian runners. I succeeded in both.

I had a good start, took the best route to the first control and did not have any bigger problems in the first difficult controls (3-6). When I came the second time to this most demanding area of the map I was maybe not careful enough. I missed control 10 (the center of the butterfly) and also 2 controls on the first butterfly loop.

I tried to tell myself that this area was difficult also for all the others and forget the mistakes. From that point on I had a quite good race, even if I felt tired in my legs and especially in my head after 6 competitions in the last week. On the long leg I started to catch some runners started in front of me and to feel confident again. But then, while crossing a green area in the steep slope before 27 a branch ripped off my SI-card. Fortunately I could find it after approximately 1 minute. I took a deep breath and tried to push hard in the last part.

Map:

In the end I was second, 45 seconds behind the winner Misha Mamleev.

Results

I had a very nice week and good orienteering possibilities very close to home. Thanks to everyone involved in the organization making this event possible.