2009 (unoffical) Rankings

The 2009 'unoffical' Rankings have been completed, link here http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=pkvOxodCJmjJng8BQvWB5ZQ&output=html At the top there are 3 sheets, the type sheets have been split into Long,Middle and Sprint, with differences from each

Forget Fornication

It was only second this year at the World Adventure Racing Champs for the Fornicator, and I love this photo (stolen from Chris and Em's blog) of the man himself having given everything washed up on a strange beach in a strange land.

A belated congrats to the Adventure racers amongst us. Aaron and Brent ensured three out of the top four teams had NZ Osquad members guiding them around!You guys rule the world...now lets just sort out your priorities aye?

The Last Cambridge

Nice article in the ODT.Its possible they are saving the best for last.

Beautiful Hills

The famous Beautiful Hill's got another run in the weekend. First used for the World Cup in 94 this map has seen much glory and even more despair. In the latest edition the star was Thomas Reynolds, showing a clean pair of heels to the field. Check out the map here, and go on people get those routes up on the gadget!

Ross

Great post by Ross on his recent training week in Trondheim. Ross and Chris are going to be lethal at WOC next year, who is going to be the 3rd wheel on the relay team?

And check out Ross's muscles...

In this article on a Norwegian website featuring Kenneth Buch's involvement with our WOC team. Also just realised Ross has a great blog on the world games experiences. I especially like the references to icing ones scrotum and old fogies...

Educational Video Part 1

Classic NZ orienteering humour from the early 90's

Chris 3rd in Swiss Six Day

Great coverage of this on Sportzhub, and no doubt further into the depths of the internet if you feel like trawling.

Winter Classic rundown

Class shone through at the Winter Classic in Wellington yesterday. British superstar turned New Zealand mum, Yvette Baker, nee Hague, returned from years out of any sort of competition to easily beat a womens elite field which had depth but not quite the ability to match her. Gillian Ingham was surprisingly (well sort of) the next in ahead of National Squad members Rita Homes and Tineke Berthelson.

Meanwhile the veterans were at it again in the mens grade with Jason Markham and Bill Edwards, who will both be racing M40 at the World Masters in Australia this year running away with the race at the start and destroying the pairing of 29 year olds Jamie Stewart and Magnus Bengttson. The race was too much for many with dense bush and steep slopes really sorting out those who knew what they were doing from those who were relying a little too much on guess work....

Angela Simpson

Orienteers on Stuff

Not very often you see this. Matthew Ogden, Gene Beveridge and Tyler Casey from Massey High dominating the senior boys grade at the National Secondary School...

No1 Norwegian

What is happening to Norwegian orienteering that a kiwi can be the first "Norwegian" in a Norwegian four day? Lets just say things are looking promising for WOC 2010 and a great performance from the Fornicator!

Chris and Em continue on in their indomitable style, mixing orienteering with 7 day tramps, climbing around in the Lofotens and general absurdity. Its unlikely Chris will add an orienteering world champs title to those he already owns in Adventure Racing and Rogaining, but if he did so what a triumph it will be for the spirit of the adventurous amateur munter kiwi outdoor lifestyler. Go you good things!

The blog also includes Chris's take on the World Cups, Forssa Games,Jukola and scrotum shrivelling nudity.

SILVA National Secondary Schools

Anyone noticed the increased coverage on maptalk news?

I was hoping to get along to the National Secondary Schools this year, but it was not to be, and it appears I missed out for there is a plethora of talent out there for orienteering fans to enjoy. Congratulations to all the individual winners, from established stars Angela Simpson and Matthew Ogden in the Senior grade to Tim Robertson and the lesser known (but obviously awesome) Cosette Saville in the Intermediate and the Junior champions Holly Edmonds and Kieran Woods. I'm sure we will see those names again over the years, and maybe the others will eventually follow Angela to JWOC.

photo: Martin Peat

Speaking of Angela, what a talent, how much can someone improve in a year and how far can she go? I have a favourite saying "don't count you juniors before they hatch", and there are lots of steps to overcome in turning a good junior career into a great one and making the progression to elites, but heres hoping she is one (of several) young woman that can keep pushing Lizzie and the others to the next step!

The Adventures of Todd

Now I'm taking the positives out of the experience. I've improved my ability to run independently whilst taking note of a pack, I'm a lot better at running hard on a good bearing regardless of the visibility/footing and I'm confident in my terrain fitness compared to all but the very fittest guys.

Hello,

I guess you want to put something on the O-squad blog. So I've written a little about the WC races.

Middle race in Finland: went well for a leg and a half. You can see my race on the GPS but some of the controls are embarassing... I was slow at the start because I was careful not to veer off my bearing but I ran a good line and increased my confidence. Going to number 2, on a longish leg, I hit the big boulder I was using as a stepping stone and then got pushed off line a little by some close pines. I jumped down a cliff (by NZ standards) and ticked it off as a feature, considering myself relocated, and ran away on a bearing expecting to come across a wide re-entrant going up to my right. Pity I was 100m north of the cliff I thought I was on! Going into the pivot for the first time I got overly involved in a foot-race with a German, lost contact with the map and more importantly a minute or two.

On my way to my 8 (I think) I ran on the compass without a plan and didn't get lucky. Later in the course I was caught by an Italian and Norwegian. I wasn't about to repeat the mistake with the German. I could run faster because I had the back-up of two other navigators behind me. I led for a couple of controls and then we just pushed each other to the finish. Some satisfying legs but not good as a whole. The good thing was that all the training of the last year was paying off: an ability to run as fast in the terrain as a lot of the seasoned internationals (albeit seldom having the navigational confidence to be able to) but more importantly at that moment; some fresh feeling legs.

GPS tracking at Salo World Cup, check it out here. The Sprint race was the next day. Qualifying races in the morning and a final in the evening in the town centre. It was going to be a struggle to qualify. At this World Cup round the field was far bigger than at a world championships. At WOC a country can only enter 3 men but here the nordic countries and swiss could enter 8. At WOC there are 15 men from each heat who go through to the final. At this race it would be 11 due to TV coverage!

I started at the same time as two guys on the other qual races. I kept my head throughout the course, I mainly picked the right route-choices. On a longer leg half-way round I exited the control at the wrong angle and by the time I realised I had to take the long route-choice otherwise I would've lost more time. That cost 20 seconds. Apart from that it was a good fast run. I managed to lose some seconds by double checking a control code. During that split second 3 guys arrived at the control and I had to wait for them all to punch... with E-mit! Fortunately I then took the better route to the next control and didn't have to wait again.

One of my mates from JWOC, Christian Christensen from Denmark, had started a minute behind me on the same course. He had been running a bit faster early in the race and said he could see me for a few legs after first half but couldn't reel me in. Then he saw me make my mistake, caught up a chunk and was the first person to punch at my pause! He got to the finish line just ahead of me. Christian only missed out on the final by 9 seconds I think. Now I know that a lot of the guys making the final can run more than a minute faster than me for 5km and that I could easily have ironed out the 20 second mistake. So I feel quite happy that I was only about 75 seconds off qualifying and hearing that Christian thought I was going well.

Greg and I really enjoyed going to Jukola and then training for a week in Halden, Norway. Kenneth Buch (2009 NZ WOC Coach) had invited us to his town and was an awesome host as well as sorting us out with daily training out on fantastic maps. One day we did club running intervals with Emil Wingsted showing how fast he is.

I stuffed the first control in the Norway middle because I didn't see the start kite... ran too far along the track thinking I was following the tape, realised it was a TV camera cable after 150m and then corrected. Rookie error! Was running pretty well after that and caught a couple of guys. I was concentrating on good compass work to get to obvious point feature attack points, like clearings, cliffs and hilltops. Some very quick Czech came through and we formed a good train. I got off the train on a long leg as we started going diagonally down a slope. The Czech had pulled away getting to the hillside and the other guys went hard trying to catch him. There were very few features to use and the guys in the mini-pack didn't seem to be following anything apart from the Czech's footprints. I aimed for a small hilltop with a clearing on it on the otherwise sloping ground then slowed down for a fine bearing into the control. I arrived just after the Czech. He'd missed and had to relocate. So I was back in the pack and had a bit more puff than the others. We did a couple more legs. I was feeling good and was reading the map enough to cut some corners off the Czech's trail-blazing. Then I sprained my left ankle at about halfway. Managed to hobble/jog into the next control and saw Greg! He'd started 4mins in front of me.

Couldn't really run too well on the ankle so obviously the result wasn't great. I wasn't too happy to get beaten by the bunch of guys I'd caught! I got the best world ranking points I've ever had though, it's to do with all the top guys being there and some of them making huge mistakes.

After the race I got some ice and a compression bandage then limped home. The next day I strapped up the ankle really well for the long. The swelling was gone and I wasn't going to miss out on this race. Norwegians love their "Classic" orienteering and I knew the course would be cool. The other aspect was that it was a chasing start and I wanted to beat those guys I'd caught in the middle but had had to let run away. I was going ok until the control between the long legs. Made the same mistake on it twice and lost about 10 mins. In fields of that quality a mistake that big is just too much. It was nearly thirty degrees and when I couldn't find the control on the second attempt I almost lost the will to compete. I couldn't help but slow down a bit, the heat and guarding my ankle were nagging at me.

Now I'm taking the positives out of the experience. I've improved my ability to run independently whilst taking note of a pack, I'm a lot better at running hard on a good bearing regardless of the visibility/footing and I'm confident in my terrain fitness compared to all but the very fittest guys.

Part 2

I went to the Belgian 3 days the other week-end and was thrown by the 1m contours (the programme said 2m to be fair). I improved on day 2 but tweaked my ankle on day 3 and DNFed.

So that was good preparation for a 10km race I did the next day! The ankle wasn't swollen and felt fine doing some strides. I was hoping for about 34 minutes or under. Couldn't talk my way into the elite start box so I had to fight (almost literally) to get out towards the front at the start. I finished ahead of the first woman, just, in 33:08. So I was quite happy considering the slopes (hills if you're Belgian) and hard start.

I've just done the French 3 days which have been a highlight due to the terrain. Fountainebleu has awesome deciduous forests with some big hills, good for orienteering. The best thing is that the hills are COVERED in massive boulders. I had a really good run in the middle on day 2. I was concentrating on using the contours and tracks so that I couldn't get confused by the boulderfields. I had the cleanest run of my year so far and was really happy. I had had quite an early start so it was good to see my time compare well with the later starters who had trains and tracks. Good thing is that it was a world ranking event so I'm looking forward to the points going up.

Tommorow I'm off to watch a stage of the Tour de France and this week-end I head to O-Ringen so life is good.

Thanks to Wellington OC for contributing to my WC costs.

Cheers,

Todd

Greta great at JWOC

Greta Knarston has slipped into the top twenty in the JWOC long event finishing 19th. She narrowly pipped Kate Morrsion who replicated Angela Simpsons otstanding result in the sprint with a 22nd. The NZ JWOC blog is here.

And courtesy of Norm Jager, I found the JWOC womens sprint map. Looks super fun...

Norm's photos can be found here. A couple of the better ones, of Angela in the sprint and Greta in the long are below...

The World of O, as always has some great coverage, maps and results of the long can be found here.

The next step in orienteering

Hat tip to O-Kansas for this interesting article. The technology isn't ripe perhaps, but the video below illustrates an application which may show some future developments for orienteering.

Seek ’n Spell gameplay video from Retronyms on Vimeo.

O-Kansas suggests random generation of trainings (harder than it sounds), but what interests me more is the potential in the future for "control less" control sites. Navigate into the site and your gps device vibrates. You move on while the person 50 metres to your left has nothing to alert them to your visiting the control, a whole new dimension of cunning and gamesmanship.

Labour saving in control placement, recovery. Cost savings in control infrastructure. I seriously think it will happen. We will praise people like Michael Wood when this happens who are actively seeking to align New Zealand orienteering maps with the GPS system.

Any thoughts out there?

Bryn on fire!

Top young New Zealand elite Bryn Davies, has made a welcome return to form and confidence with a 3rd place at the British WOC Selection Trials. The British are used to outsiders sharing the spoils in their top events, but normally they wouldn't expect those outsiders to be New Zealanders. Earlier in the season it was Ross Morrison taking out top-spot at the prestigious JK sprint event. But this event for Kiwis was all about Bryn and great to see him up there starting to fulfill his undoubted talent.

Ross wins Danish Sprint Series

Despite an amusing little mistake, illustrated below, Ross Morrison has won a prestigious Danish sprint orienteering series, showing he is in good form for the World Games next month.

Team Prepares for World Games

Around the country and the world the New Zealand team for the World Games in Taiwan is preparing in earnest. The team is Darren Ashmore (Rotorua), Tania Robinson (Auckland), Lizzie Ingham (Wellington) and Ross Morrison (currently Denmark). I caught up with Darren Ashmore yesterday, and the conversation below is more or less verbatim, with an emphasis on the less. The terrain looks great aye! very blue...

Hey Dazza, hows the World Games preparation going?

Good, real good, last week was challenging training in Singapore, I popped over to do a bit of acclimatisation to the humidity and the food...a good week of 40-50 minute runs in the heat, I'm trying to get a little bit faster which I think I am...

So whats the plan?

Well the races are on the 17-19th of July, sprint, middle, then a four person relay: girl, boy, girl, boy. We are heading over to Hong Kong first to do some training on some sprint maps, then over to Taiwan a couple of days beforehand

So what are you expecting in the way of terrain?

It sounds very similar to the sprint distance at the Japanese WOC, urban forest, they are saying 4min km winning times, so there must be a lot of track running.

And are the best orienteers in the world going to be there? How prestigious is the World Games?

Yeah absolutely, one or two have even come out saying that this event is even more important than WOC for them, in terms of their goals for this year. The World Games is only every four years and there is a lot more exposure than with the annual WOC. All the big names are going to be there Khramov, Hubbman, Georgiou, its going to be a great event.

photo credit the gormeister!

Poetry of a Desperate Runner

C'mon you know the feeling. Your training has been average to non-existent so you can't sleep properly. Thoughts and dreams related to your sport and hopefully many other things have been arcing through your head which feels mashed against the pillow. Suddenly you realise the rain isn't beating on the roof anymore and you can hear other noises, a lonely car, a possum sifting through the bush, your partner breathing, the waves collapsing on the rocky shore below, the rubbish truck choking. You need to go for a run. Whether it is 12 midnight or 5 in the morning you creak up, and scrummage with your set of draws for running gear. You get out and its dark, its just you, the streetlights and the Iranian embassy. They are always awake watching for the Israelis. You run like you do in the morning, like a fat man, an old man, past the embassy and more quickly down the steps to the waterfront, and the waves that woke you are so small, but the wind is keen on the small of your back. You balance along the rocky wall to the penguin colony, full of vegetation, empty of penguins. All good intentions, no substance, sort of like your training. You creep like a creep around the waterside apartments hoping no one has put a new chain up over this path and pause for a moment to watch another plane take off from the airport across the dark bay.

Of course your experience is unique but you have done this before plenty of times in all sorts of places, and so have others.James K Baxter, New Zealands most famous poet, wasn't known for his running. He was known for communes, drugs, vagrancy and verse. But he too knew the desperate peace and glory of a runner in the early hours...he shadows you now a whisp of dawn light cartwheeled by the wind...!

Getting Stoned on the Night Air

The long night fills the streets with fog
And the garages are windblown tombs

Under the leaves of the plane trees where I run
Lifting and dropping my arms like a bird

This mad night - so peaceful, so dark and so open,
That the sea might easily flow over the land

Or the hills crumble like sand into the river
Since the town is a bed where the young and old sleep

In the sweetness of being, - man I don't need any
LSD to open the gate in the head

That leads to a land where men are birds
And Tanemahuta plays games with his children