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?

Being Prepared

Yesterday I had a horrible run in the local OY event. I navigated well, I ran well but my mind was elsewhere for the first 45 minutes of the course and as a result I ended up having a very average run. Afterwards I was a but despondent but then I saw this article on www.orienteering.is

One thing that stuck with me from the article was a quote from Thierry Gueorgiou:

"No matter how hard you work, no matter how great your talent is, your mind is the ultimate weapon" – says Gueorgiou, and adds wisely: “Most of the runners use it against themselves!”

This tied into what I was talking about with my last post "learning from the Ghost of the Past" and I so I looked into how you could use your mind in a race so you don't wash out?

First of all I think the 6 P's explain it all: Prior Planning Prevents Piss Poor Performance. This could also be 7 depending on what school you went to... Most sports have two key componets consiting of a Mental aspect and a Physical aspect. I like to think that orienteering has 3 key componets, a Mental, Physical and a Navigational aspect. The Navigational and Mental side are very closely related but are very different at the same time.

The Mental aspect is the glue that sticks it all together, keeping your race together. Training for Physical stuff is pretty straight forward, Navigation is slightly more difficult but still can be done fairly easily. Mental preparation for a race is often overlooked as some times it comes naturally to some people and sometimes not. To neglect it completely seems a little silly when you consider how much time you train physically and navigationally. As I mentioned previously everyone who is at JWOC can navigate well, they are (mostly!) well prepared physically, but being mentally prepared is generally what sets the ones who do well from those who just completely wash out. So even if the mental preparation doesn't come naturally you can train you mind specifically so like every other aspect of orienteering when you need it it will be there.

For a start you have to be thinking Orienteering. You need to know what you can control and how to control it as well as knowing how to deal with the things that cant be controlled. Confidence is a choice, you choose to prepare, you choose to be confident. It might sound all airy fairy but when you choose to think like a champion you eventually begin to believe this. Positive thinking reinforces positive thinking and unfortunately the opposite is very true also. Above all else you have to ask yourself what are you here for? Why are you doing this? For fun. Nothing more nothing less, because you enjoy it.

Race preparation for most sports it generally easy as the field is well defined, so to speak. Like 100m sprint its easy to visualise, every time you line up go through your process, head down in the start blocks, control your breathing, bang gun goes off, you explode forward, raise upwards, lift your head, face muscles all relaxed, continue to accelerate, keeping in your lane, lean forward at the finish line and race over. Not so simple for Orienteering, the field is less defined (obviously!) and there is a lot more variables. However you can still use these techniques for Orienteering, your planning just needs to account for the variables.

I found in my searching on the internet, a brilliant presentation written up by the Canadian Orienteering Federation which looks at formulating a Race Focus Plan - a written plan of action consisting of:

• Warm up
• Start
• First 2 controls
• middle of the course
• Last 2 controls
• Finish
• Warm down
• Refocus Plan

You can find the full presentation here:

www.orienteering.mb.ca/Documents/Race%20Preparation.pps

You may or may not have noticed that in the analysis I did of my race at JWOC that it was broken up into nice neat sections. Being an engineer I have learned to think analytically so this systematic way of preparation works well for me. A lot of people do this sort of thing without realising, so if you dont think its for you then stick to what your used to and what suits you...like watching "Two and a Half Men" the night before a big race....worked pretty well for Brent!

"Right" not "Might"

My calf is still keeping me out of action, so at the orienteering event on Christchurch's Port Hills on Sunday I was in the role of photographer and observor.

Squad members Lara Prince, Matt Scott and Georgia Whitla plan their routes for Sundays score event. Scott is also known for being North American Champion and Whitla for reading upside down

It was interesting lurking around listening to people discussing navigation (as lots of beginners were out there in teams). One common word which got me thinking was "might".

"Those rocks might be those ones on the map there"

It is something we are all guilty of from time to time... mmm that clearing could be that one there, hopefully it will work out...but this is poor navigation, and as you progress through the grades it becomes less likely that the consequences that befall you will be acceptable. One of the key differences between a top junior and a top elite is consistency, and you get consistency not from doing what might be right, but doing what is right....

"Those rocks are those ones there, and I have a plan from here

When you find yourself thinking "maybe" or "might be" it should ring warning bells. Your granny on your shoulder (see previous posts for the creation of this image) should be flicking your ear.

"I don't want to know what it might be sonny...I want to know what it is!!

Making Decisions at the Right Time

The map above is the beginning of the elite mass start event held as the finale of the recent Queens Birthday event. The terrain is a plantation of pine trees on top of steep ridge and gully systems. The bogs were horendous. A track system remains principally from when the area was farmland in a previous generation.

In this blog one of the themes has been making navigation decisions at the right time. Staying ahead of the game. Attempting to orienteer like Georgiou. You know 100metres in the future or whatever. So I thought I would reflect on where on this course I was making key decisions, feedback welcome if you agree/disagree or have any other ideas or strategies...my course went 1-7-8-9-6-12-13-14-10-3-4-5-15-16.

It is easier to read the map running or walking up hill. If you attempt to read the map on a sharp downhill it will affect your running speed and leave you vulnerable to making hasty decisions. Before the control 1 I had a good idea of the shape of the first loop. 7 was easy but the pack hesitated coming into 8, not knowing which way to turn. In retrospect the key moment here was the track crossing adjacent to the earth bank halfway along the leg. A few seconds here confirming our location and we would have attacked the control with a lot more confidence.

The next two loops followed a similar pattern investing time early, specifically when walking (it was that sort of terrain) up the hills and you reaped the rewards in preparedness for series of shorter downhill controls followed by route choice. There was plenty of planning time on the hill up to 11, and again immediately before 13. But you had to be two legs in advance because 14 was downhill and easy and there was time to be gained by optimising the route choice to 15.

Likewise the hill to 3 was followed by three quick downhill controls 4-5-15 and a crucial route choice to 16. The short controls would look after themselves with bearings so I used the hill to make my route choice decision (right). While I lost some time to the guys chasing me up the hill I am comfortable that it was time well invested.

I'm thinking when you are analysing your mistakes maybe don't look so much at where you went but when you made that mistake. Was there a moment you didn't master. A decision you didn't make at the right time? Or was there a part of the course during which you could have planned ahead more to give yourself a better chance? We had a quote up a few days ago which I quite liked "chance favours the prepared mind..."

Thinking about Rock...

Thought I might gradually go through a few of my navigation lessons from the weekends events, which were among others things the final of New Zealand's Super Series for another year. The Super Series was dominated and won by Lizzie Ingham in the womens and Darren Ashmore in the men.

The first race of the weekend was on rolling farmland punctuated by outcrops of ignimbrite rock. Making for some fast running and some detailed technical navigation. The first six controls are on the map excerpt below...

No 1: My map is orientated, I am at the start triangle, jumping a fence (not marked on the map of course) and contouring down to the cliff. The obvious attackpoint is the white triangle of vegetation directly below the cliff.

No 2: When navigating in rocky areas the most important map features are the brown ones, the contours. I was stoked to see the control description for what looked like a potentially detailed circle read "gully". Attack from above and its easy.

No 3: The terrain was looking too fast to veer off to the track, and again reading the contours I could see the control was on the rock outcrops on a spur. Coming in slightly from the right, no worries.

No 4: Quick decision to the left, it looks faster on the ground. Make sure to go back up after the first patch of green.

No 5: Same as above but a water tank to give the control away. Sometimes people stop reading things like water tanks/tracks/fences etc. Your only goal is to get the control the fastest and safest way possible.

No 6: Bearing, track, second line of rocks (rocks often sit in lines or clusters that you can simplify to aid navigation)....and off on a longer leg...

1st Control Blues

I have to admit Jamie did a post on this a few months back when I emailed him with advice. After Katoa Po weekend I was really frustrated in that I would completely mess up either the first control or one of the first three. It has been a hallmark of my orienteering career from when I started a couple of years ago to now. For the life of me I haven't been able to figure out what I am doing wrong until now, perhaps!

Jamie's first bit of advice to me when orienteering was navigate before you run. This has been my mantra since then (Labour weekend 2007) and despite that it is the one thing that I consistently do poorly on either the first control (9 times out of 10) or one of the first three controls (1 time out of 10). So, can the solution be that easy?

I have realised in my process of getting going at the start of a race I just pick up the map and go. No time taken to aligning it properly, read the terrain to the first control or anything. Instead I am running around like a headless chicken trying to work out every 50 metres where the hell am I. It must look great to watch to those observing. However, not fun when it is happening to you.

It is clear I need to slow down and take an extra 10 seconds at the start of an event to read the map properly even if I don't move at all from the start. Surely this will give me some time to think things through and plan properly. As much as this has come as a revelation to me I still haven't had the chance to put it into practice - maybe at the Heights of Winter rogaine when I take off for the first control and leave my more calm and collected partner (wife) doing things properly.

If anyone thinks I am on the wrong track comments are appreciated. Or, just add in your own experiences and techniques for dealing with the problem if you have come across it.

Good luck for all those competing at Queen's Birthday weekend. I will be keeping up my training regime with a wedding at a winery in the Hawkes Bay!

Map of the Day

I went hunting for maps today and first stop was the best english orienteering blog by a speaker of another language.

No2 is a good leg, would it be too "cute" to go around to the right checking out 6 and 5 in the process?

Todays Lessons

A couple of quick thoughts from the Wellington OY today. It used to be that when we visited Waitarere we were treated to superlative sand dune forest, now regrettably it is open box thorned dunelands but our time will come again.

It was a short OY with the course modified at the last minute to avoid an infestation of motorbikes and four wheelers, which looked like damn good fun.

I went hard and fast through the first three controls and was very in control. Faced with the route choice leg to four I considered the three options...right (which the planner thought was best) which I didn't like the angles of, left which was better than that, and straight which I decided to go. I figured if I could go hard through the tight green stripe(appears white in photo), slightly to the right of the red line I could break out to the track in good time then follow the obvious lines to the control...

Unfortunately the green didn't go. It was a jungle in there. I bailed out to the farmland to the left and lost four minutes which I was unable to recoup in what was quite an easy and fast race otherwise. Talking to mapping guru Michael Wood afterwards he informs me (and I should probably and may have sometime known this already that tight stripe can mean anywhere between 20% and 60% runnability. This is worth knowing when facing decisions like this and balancing what is a positive aggressive route choice and what is a wild gamble....what do you stand to gain or lose in the context of the race as a whole?

The more common mistake on the day, catching some very experienced orienteers, including Penny Kane, Todd Oates and a resurgent Jason Markham (watch for this guy at QBday weekend!) was the adjusted course which not only knocked one whole loop off, but also cut out ctrl 11, the above went to or towards the original ctrl 11. If you look at the map now you will think "what a dumb mistake", but you see it time and time again. When something "funny" is going on in a course alarm bells should be rung. The little man on your shoulder should be flicking your ear(to go with the previous granny gear image from a few weeks back it could be your granny if you prefer). Its not just map adjustments, but elements like spectator areas, marked routes, map changes (please no comments about the Oceania Classic) and drink stations stationed in the wrong places. Those purple or red map symbols are especially dangerous!!!!

Maintenance Training (Having a Plan)

Ok, this is important. If you are going to Europe this year, or firing up for some other goal be it the National Secondary School Champs or World Masters Champs have a plan for after...and I don't mean the after party, I mean have a plan for when the event is done dusted, you and your mates have gone home and the post event lurgy sets in.

You need to rest but every year I see people loosing much of the fitness, and motivation, that they had due to prolonged spells of non training after goal events. A long term goal worth achieving, for you as an individual athlete making the most of your potential, is 3-5 seasons into the future.

In my opinion, a break should be more mental than physical...substitute the running miles for cycling or team sports, keep the short runs going, even if its only 20 minutes fartlek, and try something different. For example at the moment I am doing more rock climbing...great for core strength, for socialising and seeing some beautiful places and sun (if you do it outside).

I am interested in what other people have found works for them (feed those comments through!)but below is a rough program, to start one week after your goal event. And whatever you do just make sure you have a plan for afterwards!

Mon: bike 1 hour, recovery
Tues: 20 min fartlek/speed play, with focus on balance/jumping etc
Weds: team sport/something different, bike polo?
Thurs: bike 2 hours, preferably with others make it fun.
Fri: 20 min fartlek/spped play
Sat: walk/bike/run a long session, go explore somewhere new at a low intensity
Sun: Club orienteering, geez its been a while since I've done much of that!

O Kansas

One of the better orienteering blogs around is O Kansas. It popped up on my google alert again this morning so I thought I would check it out and found this awesome training session from Jan Troeng. Check out O Kansas for more details...

Getting Granny Going

Interested in peoples thoughts about the benefit of granny gear when running and a brilliant new motivational technique.

I was running up a hill in Wellington the other day, a great one to the big hill from Korokoro stream up to Belmont Trig, and I was contemplating the benefit of granny gear when running. We all know that granny gear really refers to the type of gear a granny could push on a MTB but is there a training benefit in running with quick light strides up steep hills?

It certainly feels like it to me! (its the feel, its the vibe! but what do you reckon?)

And the motivational technique, sometimes when I get to a really steep hill I let lose with a mighty shout "go granny go", and then I visualise my two grannys smashing it up the hill with light quick strides, barely a trace of effort showing on their wrinkled faces...I want you guys to be thinking of your grannys to...

South Islanders go Training

What do a group of South Islanders do when they've got nothing to do one weekend in Autumn? We took a break from assignments, study and work to prepare for Nationals with a serious weekend of o training. Thanks to the organization of Greta, 8 of us descended on Naseby late Friday night. Saturday started with a line course and then some control picking through some controls we found difficult back at Oceanias, I found the line course a great way to get back into some technical navigation but was left feeling a little slow from having to read the map all the time so.... After lunch we headed out around a sprint course. I think a few of us planned to really race this but I know I abandoned all the concentration I had from the morning exercise and quickly lost track of scale. We made the most of the day in Naseby by heading out for some extreme night orienteering in the forest. A good exercise in distance judgement and simplification. And surprisingly the fastest I had managed to run all day!

Sunday was a quick map memory exercise in the morning. It seemed to be more useful than everyone was expecting. Really forcing you to simplify the map and have a good plan. Greta and I followed this up with some verbalisation. A great way to expose just how often my plan goes something like "I'll run this way and then, well, hopefully I'll see the control...." Not that useful in Naseby, or anywhere else.

All in all a great weekend in orienteering paradise! (by Georgia Whitla)

Analysis: When do you actually make your mistakes

Anyone who has listened to me rant at an orienteering camp, or about orienteering in general, will be familiar with Jamie's theory of "moments"...an orienteering race is a collection of individual little moments you have to master. The key being to identify those moments when they occure, not after they occur.

Mistake analysis, is about looking back and seeing which moments got the better of you, when you should have slowed down, looked up, made sure of a compass, come up with a detailed plan or basically done anything to kick the butt of that particular moment.

A common mistake is looking at the outcome of your mistake as the mistake, rather than as the stupid, idiotic running around in circles, crazy man routine you done after you've let yourself down further back in the leg. To embarass myself I have a couple of examples from the weekend below (you can't make mistakes like these and beat Bill Edwards of sanddune terrain no matter how fast you run the rest of the course.

Leg No 3: Heading out of 2 my bearing was only very rough. I hit the track and raced over it trying to find a good path through the very rough terrain. I didn't give myself a chance. I was running along a slope, but I actually thought I was further to the right, running along a parallel slope, hence when I came to a low point in the ridge I headed hard left, only swerving back right when I saw the road fast approaching. The latter mistakes in the leg are there for your amusement but arose largely because I had lost all confidence in my angles and exactly where I was. The major mistake that wrecked the leg for me was very early on crossing the track and not making 100% certain at this very easy point. I had a chance to correct myself at the 2nd x but again failed to do so. I got mastered by the moments.

Leg No 17: I had decided in the route choice before clipping 16 and creamed it down the hill to the clearing and round the track, swinging wildly onto the ridge, I made connection with it briefly, but thought that the control was a bit further off the ridge lines direction than it actually was. It turned to custard out there in the flatter stuff and my recovery was poor. Again I made my mistake the best part of 200 metres from the control circle where I lacked the discipline to hug the linear feature and work out a clear plan for attacking the circle. The mistake wasn't where things started looking uncertain within 100metres of the control. It was where they felt so easy and in control where I have marked the X.

If you are into it, have a look at a recent map or two and try to identify where you really made your mistake, not what the outcome was. When was the moment that you could have put a plan in place or exercised some discipline to prevent the mistake from happening?

Overweighed

Well a Bulgarian coach once told me, and now its confirmed by of all things a computer, that I am indeed overweight. 6"2 94kg - Ya big fat bastard the computer says - don't listen to it I tellya!

And interesting to see Woodhill coming out first in people preferences, or at least needs, for a training camp. Thats where I placed my vote, its still the most technically challenging and runnable area we have.

On the training camp topic a couple more weekend plans to be released soon, keep an eye out!

Are you swimming naked?

Just found the great quote above from American money man Warren Buffett, thought it was quite apt for this blog (although when you are thinking as circularly as I am at the moment any quote is good for anything).

Are you orienteering naked, when the tide goes out do you have clothes to cover your inadequacies? When the hills are hard do you have the fitness, when the racing is close do you have a clear head, when the terrain is tight do you have the technical finesse. When was the last time you reflected on your strengths and weaknesses in orienteering and made plans to exacerbate or lessen them?

I'm working on my endurance at the moment, and food/water intake during longer events and on my mental approach to passing through the control circle. What are you doing? And remember the last quote on the blog from Einstein, to paraphrase...if you do the same thing every time don't be surprised when you have similar results.