Hanny Allston, tips for granite

Got this this link off Nic Gorman on Maptalk. Before our eyes Hanny has turned from a good junior into a world champion, she must have some clues! Also recommended reading is Hanny's article about the "daily process", the need to create good training habits to achieve success in your sport and balance in you life, very well written and thought out.

Auckland Champs entry

Auckland Champs entry form on the Auckland club site here Looks like a great event on technical terrain, hopefully not too much of an Ashmore, Kerrison benefit, only time will tell

Carsten will start posting on the blog soon

and until he does I am going to post revealing photos of him to get him in trouble with the missus

Tania at World Cup

Tan had a tough race straight off the plane yesterday, 2hr mass start race on typical swedish terrain, check out the start of the mens course here. Lots more articles on orienteering world.

What Carsten had to say to the WOC team

The WOC team are starting to head to Ukraine, both Chris and Tan leaving the country this weekend I think, below is some of the thoughts that Carsten sent to them General Comments: The kilometre times that have been raced in races leading up to WOC seem very fast, which in the sandy terrain for the middle distance must mean that the visability is good and it is quite easy to manoeuvre through the undergrowth and for the clay ground of sprint qual, long distance and relay must be rather hard and very runable. On the other hand clay can get quite slippery if wet making room for taking different route choice depending on weather (/clay) conditions? The rumour says that there are quite a lot of smaller and bigger rubbish things in the forest. Often mistakes in orienteering are made when it gets a bit tougher physically (throwing the competitor off the balance that the person has been riding along on very nicely until then), which in the in sprint and middle distance areas probably will occur when fast running has been going for a little while (or when obstacles like little (steep) hills and undergrowth show up) and in the long distance a bit bigger hills (and towards the end of the course). One way to get better at copping with these physical tougher periods in an orienteering race is to train intervals to simulate the stress. Now that you are getting closer to WOC it is time to sharpen up a bit and I would suggest to try to do some intervals simulating fast running on flat and then a short hill up (one that seems like the right size/steepness compared to the distance/terrain that you are focusing on) and then continuing on the flat for bit afterwards. The idea of a training camp a short time before a world champs is not to do a lot of training then (the training has to be done beforehand) but more to check out the terrain and how it is mapped. Like a green thing in England is quite often a rhododendron bush/tree thing and so fort. To try and test orienteering and running at competition speed it is better to do interval type of sessions with shorter bursts of high intensity (5-15 minutes). Heat is quite often a factor at WOC and it is likely to be that again this year and attention has to be drawn to drinking enough water (when racing and before and after (all the time)) and getting electrolytes (when sweating and urinating a lot). It is always a good thing to have lots of fun and staying relaxed (focus, when you need to, the rest of the time build the focus reserve up by having fun and relaxing (look at the positive things)). If you have negative things to let out, go shout somewhere else than close to the team (or find a team official to discuss the subject with, hopefully things can be sorted with out involving the team before events). If the team has to be involved then go through the thing in a matter of fact way and sort it out and end the scenario with something positive for the team to focus on in the continuation. Yep, be onto it and have lots of fun, this is a cool chance to show off what you’re very good at.

News Flash: Karl 2nd at Oz Long Distance

From the Ozzie O site, no further details at this stage, further commentary to come Neil says, "it was an awesome area and very rocky, Karls run was ok , he made a cock-up on a long leg, it was like 10 minutes downhill fast then into a detailed area of rock, there just wasn't a decent attack point and Karl lost 4 minutes". Karl showed real form on the last loop after the spectator leg, it was impressive"

Awesome Georgiou Video

Hey, I really recommend the Thierry Georgiou video on World of O about the recent Norwegian World Cup Win. Has him going through the race leg by leg, really interesting looking at his orienteering technique, ie what features he uses, what he is thinking about when making his route choice etc...take a look!

Some photos

Tineke and Lizzie Outstanding!

Have been loving the JWOC coverage, amusing and quite dramatic live audio...and kiwis doing great, four qualifiers for middle. I'm just sitting here waiting for the final now. Tineke and Lizzie 2nd and 3rd in qual, that must be unprecedented for kiwis! They'll be starting late. Kate M and Tom also fantastic...and must note Gretas awesome results earlier Heres the middle qual map with all controls, pretty simple contours, sounds like a key technique has been to green light/red light the legs...ie plan route choice to avoid slow running technical areas, using the open valleys to get as close to the circle/attack point as possible.

Using Catching Features for Training

I have long thought the orienteering simulator Catching Features has benefits for technical O training...particularly in situations such as NZ where we have limited competitions and top quality maps Heres a link with some comment on the benefit of Catching Features notably by Mattias Merz, one of those gun Swiss, see here Will comment more about this in future as I give it more thought

I Love Maps!

Check out this one from Croatia courtesy of the site of Rachel Elder, GB squad Anyone keen to go orienteer in Croatia before Czech next year? I'm there with bells on.

JWOC Site

The Aussies are doing a pretty good job of the JWOC build-up so far, check out the JWOC Site, if you haven't already...here