DBK Sprint Finale (02/06/2012)

German champs sprint, A-final. 1,8km + 30m
Plan was to run clean and smooth and push it whenever possible. Started good and had already catched 3 runners by the 6th control (yes, they were slow and made mistakes), but was also starting to get tired already. Lost lots of time at 7, first because I was slow up the stairs, then because of searching the control at the wrong place. Got catched there by Caroline (starting 1 min. behind me, 4th place in the end) and continued to run with her until 12 or 13, where I lost her on the long stairs down. From there on clean run except for a silly mistake in the run in - which may lost me the 6th place :(
Details:
7) Slow up the stairs. Then didn't know if the control is up or down the wall, couldn't interpret the control description. Looked at the upper part first, but didn't run to the end. Didn't see the control, so thought it should be down. Climbed over the railing at the stairs, stumbled through bushes and had to realize that I thought wrong. Back up and there it was, just around the corner from where I already was before. At least 45s
14) Was a bit behind with map reading, so little hesitation before the control. 5s
16) Had to stop a second to interpret the map. 3s
Leaving 16 I saw out of the corner of my eye a little boy on the playground who was fallen from something and didn't get up again. No adults near, so slowed down for a bit to see if I would get up again - he did finally. Guess that costed me about 5s.
Finish) Silly moment of the day: finish chute wasn't flagged and I was braindead enough by then to just continue straight from the last control first, before I realized that that was the wrong direction. 14s slower than Caroline here and considering that I could follow her on the flat parts in the middle of the course, that's about the time I lost there - how silly and useless :(
1:12 faster in an ideal run maybe...