Elite Orienteers Show Their Emotions

Just picking this up from the very good okansas blog.

Thierry and Simone article

Great article on Attackpoint. If you can't take me seriously promoting the benefits of catching features listen to Thierry, "I sometimes play 4 hours a day, sometimes less"!!

Heres an excerpt, a Tuesday training session and the importance of maps:

Those details have a lot to do with map exercises for Thierry and the gang in St. Etienne. The ice-cold Tuesday training session in the park Le Jardin des Plantes, just a stones throw from Thierrys house, is both impressive and a little odd.

Olivier Coupat runs the workout like a soccer coach, and on the track in the lower part of the park, 10 elite orienteers are doing bounding and strength exercises mixed with stretching. Even though were in France, land of freedom, your thoughts go unbidden to Eastern Europe -- not that that is necessarily a negative thing.

The runners are divided into three groups. One does bounding drills, another balance exercises and the third strength, in a circuit format. During each 15-second period per circuit, they have to look at a map, a detailed Norwegian map with a course on it. When they get to the strength station, Coupat is there with an assignment: If theres a stone at control number 2, without looking at the map again, the runners have to decide whether its to the left or right of the actual control point.

We dont have so much detailed terrain here around St. Etienne so this is good for learning to read many details around the circle, explains Gueorgiou.

To keep up to the Scandinavians and Swiss we must be better than them technically. Therefore the map is almost always present in some way in our training, says Olivier Coupat.

Party at Oceania's

Think we need a squad get together at Oceanias. So the day is the 7th after the Classic. Venue: Jamies parents house next to Avalanche Creek. If people are up to it we'll meet there say maybe 4pm, then the BYO BBQ/Party will begin maybe six.

This is from maptalk.

"Latest NZOF news states that council is looking forward to a "decent trial" of the code of behaviour.

I hereby announce I won't be organising or coaching at any more official NZOF squad camps. Maybe I'll organise Jamie and friends camps.

I refuse to kowtow to the the PC brigade that put this policy through to stop me having a beer with my mates. Its ridiculous. But neither will I be set-up for a fall.

AND on a brighter note, I noticed that the Oceania barn dance has fallen through, but don't worry there will be a BYO BBQ/Party/BoozeO at Jamie's parents house in Arthurs Pass on Wednesday the 7th of January following the Oceania Classic.

The party will finish on nightfall but the celebrations will continue in the local pub. There is a DOC campsite adjacent to the venue.

In no way should this be considered a "National Squad Camp".

Jamie

What Orienteers get up to with Giraffes and Camels

It just appeared on facebook....

The Rocketman tells us where to go....

Late last night, I emailled Ross asking him if he could write something up for us...this morning I woke up to a mail in my inbox. Great for someone to just get something done and help us out...you're a legend Ross, go hard into the winter my little furry friend!

No sweat!

You guys can all check out my blog at http://mapross.blogspot.com/ , most of my maps from the camp are on there (mistakes and all!). I guess I'll just do a brief spiel about the different terrains as some of you guys will be targeting different races for WOC next year.

Sprint: This will be my main target for next year. Like the sprints I did at the camp, the WOC sprints will supposedly be set in the same fashion. Starting in steepish forest and coming down to finish in either a park, zoo or town type terrain. This is the map for both the qual and final of the sprint. The zoo part is on the southern part of the map across the road. I am not 100% sure if they will use that because that road is quite busy, (and it looked pretty crappy when we drove past) The forest part of the course will generally be very open and fast, in nearly all of the legs it will be just a matter of going straight and hard. So you will need to be strong with your compass and direction changing out of controls. It is very important to be ahead of yourself on the map in this part of the course to get some flow going. There will mostly likely be one route choice leg in the forest area (possibly 2), so again being ahead on the map helps. If you have planned your route before you get to it you will save alot of time. However, in alot of sprint races done in nz in parks and campus style etc, the route choice is not so important, you usually save more time by making a quick decision (one way or the other) than you do by trying to work out which is the best way. But I think in hungary you should definitely make sure you pick the best route because there could be 10 to 20 seconds difference in it, and that can be the difference between coming in 5th place and qualifying well and coming 16th+ and missing out.

Ross in action in Sweden: Credit Paul Prudhoe

The second part of the course will be again quite technically easy, but you have to be aware of the changing terrain and to adjust your technique accordingly. There will be alot of chances to make small mistakes on this course. So my plan will be to run at 95% and have a clean run, rather than at 100% and risk making 30seconds of mistakes. Ofcourse apon making the final I will then be going 110% and risk winning! I think the best training you can do if you are targeting the sprint is to try and find a simliar map in NZ, or do seperate trainings in forest and park terrain. Do alot of terrain intervals and short hill intervals aswell (600m-1km).

Middle/Long qual: These will be on the same map As you can see its quite steep, so start getting in that hill training! This terrain is quite fast, and very open. The light green is also very runnable, but the darker greens are definitely worth avoiding. There are alot of weird negative features on these maps, so always be sure of what is up and what is down. Because alot of the hills are very broad you have to be able to use point features very well to know your height during the leg. It is very important not to do extra climb, or to lose too much height. The brown point features that look like nipple rings are called 'lime burning grounds' they are basically just a small flat area on the side of a massive hill. But they are quite obvious and can be very helpful. Some look like small depressions even. I recommend on some pre woc trainings to become well accustomed with these friendly features. There is alot of stony ground in this terrain, which you should avoid as much as possible. It is quite slow running, and an ankle buster. Alot of the big depressions have stony ground around the sides, so often it will be faster to go straight through the bottom and up the other side than to contour around the side.

Middle final/ Relay: These will both be run on the western part of this map: As you can see, quite steep again! This terrain is a bit more interesting than for the qual maps. Alot greener too, so route choice will come into play a bit more.

Long final: This is on a new map. It backs onto the map I trained on in slovakia called 'Silica L'adnica'. So Im guessing the terrain will be quite similar. They said at a lecture I went to on the camp that there is an abandoned city/town or something like that on the map. So it should be quite interesting.

The training camp I went on was in autumn, so there were alot of leaves on the ground and not so much on the trees. This means that at WOC time it will be the other way around. So running will be alot faster, and visibility will be slightly lower. It can apparently be very hot in Hungary in the summer. so be prepared if you're targeting long distance!

Hope this helps.

Love Ross

PS. Also look at the lecture on the website

Mmmm delicious: maps from Ross's blog

if you haven't checked out Ross's blog yet, its lovely and the link is out left there, otherwise go straight to this sprint map and critique his routes.

Elite Rankings Out.

Hey people, Greg has compilated the year end ranking lists again, thanks Greg awesome!

Big winners Karl and Thomas in the mens (I'll ignore the statistical anomaly of the Fornicator), with Lizzie the real star in the womens topping the rankings for the first time, closely followed by Greta. Will be awesome to see the rivalry between you two develop over the next few years! Makes me excited about the womens elite at Oceania, the young flyers facing up to the more experienced racers with particularly Tania and Penny returning after missing some big races!

See the womens here, and mens here.

Carstens latest email

Hi There All the Squad Stars!

Hope you're all good and training well and enjoying the nice warm weather that has been hanging around lately. This is a very short version of the normal emails I send out.

INOV8 First thing is INOV8 orders are received until and including Friday the 21st of Nov for handover at Oceania. $90.00 was the price for a pair last time and I believe it still is. Here's the link for the INOV8 homepage: http://www.inov-8.com/ - I'll need to know your shoe size and shoe model with your order.

COACH trainee at JUNIORcamp If you're interested in being a trainee coach at the coming JuniorCamp then please let me know straight away. There are up to 3 spots available and it is going to first in gets to go. The JuniorCamp is taking place at Scoutlands close to Wanganui on the 14th-19th of Dec. Further information at http://nzorienteering.com/

TRAININGCAMP after OCEANIA There is going to be a combined open D-squad NOS and Aussie training camp following the Oceania (the week afterwards) with trainings down and around Dunedin in the beginning and then ending up in Christchurch. James Bradshaw is coordinating.

SUPERSERIES 2009 Round 1 Oceania South Island (Oceania Champs events and a mass start at Naseby on sunday) Round 2 JWOC trials (PalmerstonNorth/Masterton) Waitangi Weekend Round 3 Nationals Auckland Round 4 QB 3days Central District

These are the 4 rounds in the SuperSeries 2009 and further information on the exact events and how many counts towards to overall and so fort will arrive in an inbox close to you.

Yeps, that was a short update - please get back to me with INOV8 orders and if in case you're interested in coaching and training at the JuniorCamp. And any other questions / feedback is also welcomed!

All the best with training and life!

Tane Mahuta Lord of the Forest

Squad Email

hey as acting squad cc, thought I better keep in touch. Has been awesome keeping an eye on you dudes over at the World Cup and JWOC in the last month or so. Its great to have you over there representing us all. I wrote this next bit a while ago,

"Lots going on recently. Ross and Bryn representing in Europe, great effort guys, and a real succesfull QB weekend final of the superseries, some great races, particularly that night sprint thanks to Carsten and Tessa and some interesting results. I am blown away by the talent that there is coming through at the moment, Lizzie, Tom and Scott to name a few that just get better and better. Keep it up people with hard training and cunning thoughts theres no shortage of people in our squads who could beat the best in the world.

A few psychological things I've been talking with people about recently:

I went for a run with Carsten the other day and we were discussing the attitutude necessary for success at WOC. We both agreed that an important approach was not to think of "peaking" at WOC at least not in a navigational sense. In WOC (or JWOC) you should be trying to cut out your normal performance not some mysterious super performance that people seem to dream of. This normal performance is the level that you perform at regularly during the super series and of course the key is doing all you can to make your normal performances as bloody brilliant as possible.

Perfect practice makes perfect. I remember reading about Nouredine Morcelli (a great runner a few years back) and how he cried when his training sessions didn't go well...it was so important to his performance to meet his goals in training. This is even more important in orienteering where habits and decision making are so important. Perfect decision making creates perfect decision making by encouraging the right pathways in the brain. Crappy decision making perpetuates crappy decision making. Don't ever forget this, there is a fine line between learning from your mistakes and continually suffering from them.

On this point. At the D Squad camp at Naseby a few weekends back I was thinking about the problem of how to coach "danger signals" into those speed demons that haven't yet mastered speed control. I experimented with running along behind someone, just stating one word "danger" whenever I thought there was a navigational issue that needed to be dealt with, they then had to explain what the issue was and how they were dealing with it. A variation on the old verbalisation exercise but focussed on specific decision making moments that you can think about, have a go with and adapt.

The "Zone". This damn mysterious zone thing, its a curse. As discussed with Tom recently...if you starting thinking "wow, I'm in the zone" during a race alarm bells should ring. Any zone that there may be can only ever be conceptualised in retrospect otherwise you're thinking about the wrong stuff.

Whats next: well heaps of you have wicked missions planned world cups/champs/university games....awesome!!! Go hard!

The others staying at home, well I'm still real keen to try and make the Squads Camp happen, maybe in Vegas around the weekend of the tough guy, which is 19/20 August see http://www.toughguyandgal.co.nz/ anyone interested in coordinating this get in touch with the Carsten.

Oh and I noticed some photos from the qb party at Ambers facebook page http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=579723174#/album.php?aid=27948&id=579723174&ref=mf Thanks to those that made an effort, great to do something at orienteering that didn't involve talking about sport, or shit talking or training or orienteering....gotta keep your mind open to different influences you never know it might somehow give you a competitive edge."

And yeah still looking for someone to organise a bit of a get together, physical training weekend in the north island when everyones back, if this persons you get in touch with me or Carsten.

And one other thing I was thinking of the other day is the need to have a real good plan or at least strategy for making the most of the post JWOC/WOC/big trip training time. Its way too easy to let a little rest turn into a big one, a few ideas to get you thinking

- have a recovery period training programme good to go before its needed - change tack a little bit, try and achieve something in one of your cross training sports, whether thats mtbing or whatever - keep that core strength through gym work or whatever it makes it much more pleasant getting back into training again. Awesome.

and by the way I can still run, started a race we stumbled upon in Singapore this evening and felt strong and sweaty. Looking forward to racing youse all again soon.

Take care

Jamie

Google Images Chris Forne...

and come up with...

Latest Email...

Yo,

Final message about the end of season gathering this weekend...

First some hardout running through the forest searching like wackos for little plastic boxes to ram our sticks into, them some crazy running through the Massey campus likewise, then another run through the forest. Then the king and queen of the superseries will be crowned by our pet Danish court jester.

Remember that the races will probably assist selection for the test match in September, so psych up and bring your A game. Lots of running like the wind in a straight line and desperately trying to keep in control, or notice when the brain fade kicks in!

Then I've organised a party, show up or I'll feel like a dork, the venue is 619 Waitarere Beach Rd, starts afternoon after the event, we'll sort out some activity like hanging around like bogans and goths and scaring the locals...bring meat and beverages.. and by popular demand the theme has expanded to include those urchins of teen angst "emos", so you've got a choice between bogans, goths and emos, something there for everyone. Check out the squad blog http//osquad.blogspot.com for information on emos, videos of Goths and an example of the minimum kind of emoish allowed courtesy of Kenny Pain!

also stormers and other people staying in our bach please pay $26 to MADeventz 06-0637-0235704-00, cher, and other stuff.....

Naseby Weekend

Awesome to be back at Naseby last weekend with James, Tane, Rita and several of the D Squad, its always a wicked challenge, thanks James for making this happen.

Squads Weekend

After the inaugural weekend last year in Taupo we all thought it was a good idea, so keen to make it happen again this year, one idea was in Rotovegas at around the same time as the Tough Guy/Gal, great fun race. As I'm out of the country would really like someone to volunteer to put it together, happy to help out as much as I can, let me know this weekend if you are keen.

Cool see you there

Jamie

Kenny Pain and friend

squad newsletter.

Kia ora guys, Hope all is well with everyone and training is going good. Especial thoughts to those of you on the other side of the world and those preparing for the international season. A few practical things in this little email so read on. Queens birthday: Looking forward to catching up with people at QB, should be a great event. I have booked some accomodation at Waitarere Beach primarily for southerly storm people, but probably have a few spare places to sleep. Would be awesome if other groups from around the country could organise to stay in the vicinity.Theres a campground and stuff there as well as bachs. I think we should have some sort of end of season party, since socialisation is good. It will be on the Sunday and it will have a theme, I think we will make the theme "Bogans and Goths", just for a laugh. You should all come dressed up to amuse me. It will start at our bach straight after the event, bbq provided, beach nearby. Sweet. Training Weekend Naseby: To the best of my knowledge James is still organising a training weekend at Naseby later this month round 24/25th ish. Should be awesome. I'll be there keen to do some coaching and some exploring of the wickedness of Naseby. Recent Events: popped past the South Island champs, looked like everyone was having a great time, one of those intense weekends with lots of races. Cool innovation holding a night event, from all accounts some peoples night orienteering techniques need some work! Sounds like Auckland Champs was good quality too. I went over Tanes maps with him last night and looking at the classic course it seemed really well planned with lots of route choice and short legs and scary stuff. Go the Aspins! If anyone is interested in writing up some articles about these events for endurance sport or web sites, please give me a bell as wriitng up stuff on events you didn't attend is kind of hard. Acting Coaching Co-ordinator: yep thats me. As discussed with the squad at Nationals I am keen to step back a bit. I was hoping that by volunteering and stepping forward I might help to generate more positive action and cooperation from the elite community. This didn't quite happen as the majority of elites focus is firmly on their own performance. I'm happy to accept this as the way things are. The problem is this puts a lot of responsibility on the NOS CC, who is unable to give what the individual athletes require. The theory is a NOS CC arranges coaches for athletes, rather than coaching them, but who has the expertees/time/desire to coach an elite orienteer? With my vision thwarted I'm stepping back so if a magnificent saviour NOS CC comes along they can pick up the reins. In the meantime I plan to continue working behind the scenes, keeping people in touch, organising the occasional training weekend, updating the squad blog now and again and doing some promotion etc. I am also happy to help any individuals that may think my knowledge or skills may be of use to their orienteering performance, just get in touch! World Cup Team: Great to see the World cup Team announced (check the NZOF site) Lots of people going lots of cool places! Kia kaha to you all. Sweet, expecting to see most people at QB, and don't forget Bogans and Goths people in civilian clothing will have to do something horrible to get in!! Jamie

Spoils Shared at Nationals

link to sportzhub article here

Senior Elites Styling it at Waitangi

Bushrangers Team Announced

OA have announced the Bushrangers team for Waitangi. Looks like they have a solid unit of experienced competitors in both genders then some younger competitors newer to the scene. Link here

Squaddies in Action: Waitangi last year

Eva Jurenikova Blog

Blog by Eva Jurenikova, Czech elite runner and adventure racer....this is not just a New Zealand phenomenon. Useful links for those looking at WOC here

Squad Email

Below is the latest squad email, this went out to the squad email list and the high performance email list (people on the periphery of or associated with hp orienteering). If you didn't get this email and should of, or would like to be on the high performance list just let me know.

Hey people,

First update of the year from me, lots of important stuff (yeah right I hear you say), and possibly some general ramblings and trash talk I'll just see how the email flows.

This is going out to National Squad and High Performance Lists.

Waitangi: closing day next friday according to Simon, a few Pinestars not entered yet...enter online and accomodation it would be great if everyone stays at the arranged accomodation in Hamilton..Sun night through to weds night...Kate Rea is the booking agent.

Pinestars: have been named. congrats to La, Lise, Kate, Rachel, Greta, Lizzie, James, Neil, Karl, Darren, Ross, Chris and me (stealing Karls other runs on the basis that his puku is too big). I'm assuming you are all running all the Test Matches (mon,weds,sat,sun) unless the selectors have been informed otherwise. Penny as reserve, because she possibly can't make the last weekend, will probably poke your eyeballs out and feed them to Brent if there is any funny business going on. Carsten will be managing the pinestars and I will be coach. We will try and arrange a pinestars/bushies dinner at some stage during the week. Uniforms after the last trip to Aussie I think it was decided to purchase pinestars gear of some description I think this is unlikely to have happened in time, at this stage it will just be a matter of wearing the best NZ gear you have.

Super Series got this email from Carsten today

"Yep, we are going ahead with 4 rounds SuperSeries consisting of 4 events at Waitangi (the same events as the testMatch), 3 events at Otago Champs (at Naseby), 3 at Nationals and 2 at Auckland Champs. I have attached the proposed subsidy scheme, which is preliminary as the HP budget for 2008 has to be okay before a 50% can be confirmed, but 37.5% is confirmed with the Scottwood Trust Funding. I would say that 50% funding is quite certain, but I’ll get the confirmation in the next week or so. I recommend that people start looking to find cheap airfares. We’ll continue working on getting funding to subsidize going to South Island Champs and QB as a SuperSeries Revenge Series to give everybody that is going for WOC or JWOC this year and in the future, as many top quality orienteering competitions under the belt as possible."

So its small superseries as advertised with Naseby chiming in instead of SI Champs, due to it being at Naseby (home map of a large group of talented juniors as of next year...hope you guys all make the orienteering instead of O week) and being just before all the trials at Nationals. So yeah prob pay to start figuring out how the hell you can get there. Have attached subsidy spreadsheet, this is calculated on 50%, this is not guaranteed yet, at the mo 37.5% is guaranteed. With the Fornicator back in the country, some possible points from the Dunedin elite scene and another rumoured move or two I'm picking Southerly Storm to clean up again, while Northern will unfortunately struggle.

Squad Review there is a NOS review underway by the selectors. I think they are using the old selection criteria while that new lot discussed at the end of last year are nearly ready to be in place.

Nationals: Online entry is available for nationals, enter now and show the clubs that elites aren't always disorganised. and Accomodation I am in the process of booking bach accomodation at Riversdale Beach which is closer to the events than Masterton, is beside a beach and has a 9 hole golf course and tennis courts. It would be awesome if you people got a crew together and booked other baches out there, it would be fun. www.bookabach.co.nz or something like that has heaps of bachs available.

Other Stuff: things to be actioned in the short term include the reporting spreadsheet discussed at the end of last year. Didn't get a single positive reply from squad members re Manawatu training so didn't proceed with it.Am at a bit of a loss re orienteering training camps, think perhaps focus on regular training at a provincial level more important. Tell me what you want done about anything, or any amazing ideas you have!

Coaching Tips:some things I was thinking about today as I refocused on my buildup to Nationals incl the test match. 1) running in the heat, it could be hot at Waitangi try and fit some runs in during the middle of the day (stay hydrated), 2) terrain, easy to forget about, get out their on the forests/farms 3) speedwork, plenty of sprint/middle racing coming up, get those legs moving and be specific, 200-400m reps with short recovery remaining aware of the location of your aerobic threshold and monitoring decision making ability ........or ideally get along to your local summer series if you have one. 4) core strength/joints etc, maintenance, maintenance, maintenance our bodies are extremely sensitive machines.

Sweet, take care out there, catch youse around.

Jamie

Fitter, Faster, Stronger

From Hanny's blog about her upcoming move to our fair shores .....here

Pinestars selected

The team to face Aussie has been named....see here Time is counting down to Waitangi people, so get some specific training going!!