Slovenia delivered on all fronts with some tough orienteering and wonderful settings. 5 races in 5 days, 3 middle distances in some of the world famous karst terrain, 1 long distance in the mountains and a sprint in the small town of Cerkno. Outside of the orienteering, the strong Kiwi contingent spent if time driving up and down mountain roads to and from our accommodation in a beautiful middle of nowhere with epic views of big mountains further afield. I will definitely we heading back to Slovenia in the future, and the people are sooo friendly and generous – perhaps it is the most overlooked travel destination in Europe.
This was my first time in karst terrain and I started that first race cautiously, but quickly got into the swing of things. I finished this first stage in 13th place. The biggest surprise in this terrain was how stony the ground was, and this had a clear impact on running speed and made track routes much more appealing than they first appeared on the map.
Stage 2 felt to be a similar performance for me, one mistake and a bit of unnecessary bush bashing and I was expecting a similar result, but I was very surprised to finish in 4th place with some big mistakes from many of the top runners. This stage was even rougher and very draining in the hot sun.
The third stage saw a break from the karst terrain to hit up some more mountainous orienteering, with the event centre only accessible using a gondola. I did a good job of most of the routes on this course, but a big mistake heading into 2 turned into me inadvertently missing the control completely and heading straight to 3. A big brain fart, which saw me join Matt at the bottom of the standings after his mispunch the day earlier.
A sprint in the small town of Cerkno added more variation to the week. This was a fun sprint with an arena start, spectator run-through and a lot of action around the course. I made a few small errors, all related to planning and getting ahead of myself. So it was good that I was focused, but I still have much to improve here.
The final stage was another tough middle distance back in the limestone sinkholes. After a mistake to the first I pulled together a good race and did some accurate and high speed navigation that I am proud of. I finished in 9th in a tightly packed field, only 2 minutes from the lead. This was a great way to finish Cerkno Cup and my time in Europe for this season.
