capestorm extreme-o lebanon

I entered the Capestorm Extreme-O a few weeks ago, thinking it was a score event, where you go out into the forest, and see how many controls you can find in the given time limit.

First surprise, when I received the final race instructions, 4 maps for the event, Trail-O (11km), Sprint-O (3km), Hill-O (4km), Long-O (10km). That's a minimum of 28km of orienteering, if you go straight line, and don't make any mistakes. Have I mentioned that I only run 25 minutes / 4km a day for training at the moment...

Second surprise, it started raining, very hard, on friday night, and only (sort off) stopped sunday afternoon, after the race...

So I packed a few sets of my warmest gear, and decided to take it one map at a time, see how I feel after each map, and hope for the best.









While everybody ran off into the forest, I decided to start very slow on the 11km trail run. I was a bit disappointed that we could not choose our own routes, and had to follow the green MTB route, but it was a very pleasant run anyway. I felt a little tired afterwards, definitely wet, but not cold.



I enjoyed the sprint O very much, it felt like I had passed a few people on this map, but I'll have to wait for the results to see. I didn't make any big mistakes, and I felt much better than after the trail run. But I was very wet at this point, and so cold I couldn't get the next map in the plastic bag, due to frozen / cramping hands. So a quick byte to eat and a dry shirt before the next leg.



I ran most of this map on my own, catching Timothy towards the end. I was very happy with most of my route choices and navigation, and felt pretty good at the end.



Here's were things fell apart. The long leg from no 1 to 2 was very easy navigation, but my legs decided they'd had enough, so I decided to do another one of my huge detours to avoid hills from no 2 to 3, and on the way to no 3 realized that I just won't make the full course, so I skipped no 4, which would add another 4km, and went via no 5 to the finish.

All and all I'm very happy with what I achieved for the day. It was very cold, and very wet, but the forest was fantastic. And there is nothing better than spending 4h29 in the forest, doing approximately 24km of orienteering, with a total climb of 953m (according to my watch). Off course, the legs are really hurting at the moment!

A bit of advertising. Capestorm sponsers this event each year, and I for one, really like their products very much. I run in their shirts, and shorts, I have 2 of their wind / water proof shells, a Midge and Mosquito sleeping bag, and one of their old bivvy bags (I have to be honest, I don't like the new ones). The only thing I've bought from their competitors (won't name names today) is the long tights, because they didn't have the really warm ones available at the time.