Swiss 5 Day Stage 4 (18/07/2012)

Really tough race for Stage 4 of the Swiss 5 Days. No shortage of hills, but thankfully I started later and there was the most ridiculous tracking I have ever seen to the controls. Came 2nd which is pretty good. I had a few errors but most were from unfamiliarity with the terrain. (1) Ran it straight banking on the fact there would be some tracking the way I wanted to go, and there was more than enough. You could have driven a car on some of the tracks through the forest it was crazy. Almost no navigation needed. (2) Cut off a little bit of the height of the hill but had a bad exit from the ridge. Also I was fairly hesitant going into the control because there was hardly any tracking (+0:30). (3) Lost map contact just running tracking but relocated pretty quickly (+0:10). (4) Had some other guys right with me so I picked up the pace to try to get away before the low visibility of the trees ended. (5) Lots of other knolls in the area so I climbed too high in the circle (+0:20). (9) Thought I took the most logical route to 9 but there was no tracking up the linear marsh which was odd. (11) Dropped too far low to the right about 200m before the control (+0:20). (12) Stopped short above the steep bank and then had a hesitant entry into the control (+0:10). (13) Ran a bit high and had to drop (+0:10). (14) It looked really green running straight so I thought going right would be faster, but the forest was green there too (+0:10). (15) Really bad compass and almost overshot the control (+0:20). (19) Dropped too low pacing off someone too much (+0:10). (20) Hit the knoll perfectly but things went horrible from there and in the end I was just hunting. Should have checked my compass again (+0:30). (21) Did not see the track to the right but if I had run that I would have saved myself a lot of climb (+0:40). Total +3:30.