The Last Cambridge

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

Aussie schools champs

Looks like our future elites are again dominating the aussies on their own turf. Some impressive results in the Australian schools individual champs yesterday, held near Bendigo, Victoria:

Liam Paterson 3rd Junior Boys

Lauren Turner 4th Junior Girls

Gene Beveridge 3rd Senior Boys

Angela Simpson 1st Senior Girls

Laura Robertson 3rd Senior Girls

Selena Metherell 4th Senior Girls

Sounds like the results were pretty close in the fast open terrain, in particular, Angela took out Senior Girls by 1 second ahead of Belinda Lawford!

full results can now be found on winsplits

NZ are nicely ahead in the southern cross challenge heading into todays relay, on similar terrain.

Compression Socks

Personally I'm a big fan of compression for recovery. I think that for me it makes a difference to my recovery. A couple of months before JWOC my coach suggested that I try out some compression socks to help my lower legs with recovery since I was having trouble with my shins at the time. I cannot speak highly enough of them, I don't know if its placebo or what but I feel like my legs feel fresher after a run with the socks on. I don't race without them now, sure I look like a gimp in knee high white socks, but that's a small price to pay. . I had a wee look to see if there was much research to back this up. I found one paper that found running performance at anaerobic and aerobic thresholds was improved using compression socks. Another paper I found showed a reduction in markers of muscle damage following a series of athletic tests while wearing compression tights. . A remarkably small amount of research about it. I have read some on the AIS website in the past but it hasn't let me in today. I think, be it placebo or not, compression has a place in maximising the performance of runners. I think at orienteering in New Zealand we don't acknowledge the toll that running at speed on uneven ground takes on our legs. For me this is one of my efforts to reduce that damage and hasten recovery.

Beautilful Hills at Auckland Champs

Last weekend we had the Auckland Champs up here. Day 1 and Day 2 were very different. Day 1 started with a loop in the native area North of Inland Road. The middle of the course was flat out with lots of track. The last loop to finish off the course was my favourite. I have scanned it in at the bottom of the post. It was low pine trees, much younger than Spaghetti Soup, with not too much cutty grass. Was quite similar to the green area from the Celebre map. Out of the elites, most of us managed to hash at least one of the native controls, and it was this final loop that made the difference in the end. 16 caught out Jason Markham, who had been leading at that point. 18 caught a few; difficult to get a nice attack point and very easy to drift past it into the broad re entrant beyond. My route through this part of the map aimed to keep my speed high for as much of the leg as possible before using a big feature to prompt me to slow down. It worked pretty well, except on 18 where I lacked a strong feature and slowed it down to micro navigate. The course was definitely not boring, I really liked having to use very different techniques throughout the course. Probably very very different from Canterbury Champs this weekend

What the stick guy reckons

What should happen to the WOC relay results? Read what the guy who ran into a stick reckons (for what it is worth I agree - the results should be voided they are meaningless).

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?

Ongoing goings on

So all has been quiet on the Western Front as we have been having some internal discussions behind closed doors on the future of High Performance in NZ. Its good to hear some positive opinions/ideas being expressed. It would be good to hear a few more so don't be afraid to have your say, its your National Squad...but I guess it comes down to how much time one wants to use/(waste?) on such matters....

Next weekend the Auckland Champs starts up with only half of Auckland rumoured to be turning up (and me), the following weekend the Schools Team is off to Aussie. The same weekend is the Canterbury Champs on that crazy Cragieburn Map. Then onwards to World Masters, SI champs and Tonic! So its all starting to warm up to a nice little pre-season prior for next years exciting new and rumoured to be improved Super Series!

Also I managed to find myself one of these Job things, so it may be a while before you hear from me again....

World of O - WOC2010

It looks like the focus of the international orienteering community has switched suddenly to Trondheim, and the best elites in the world are now trampling madly over each other to get to grips with this challenging terrain. The World of O has some great coverage and particularly maps...

World Games Middle

Ages ago one or more people asked me to run through (no pun intended) my experiences and races at world games. So, now that all the excitement's over, and many of you have forgotten that world games ever happened, i've finally got around to writing about my middle race. Thought i'd choose the middle race to put up here as it was, mentally atleast, a better race for me than the sprint, and marginally less of a straight running race than the middle. Actually, the decision was pretty arbitrary...

Being one of the lower ranked competitors in the field, i managed to draw the 4th start in both the middle and sprint. This meant that i was always on the first bus out to the event, not such a great thing in the intense heat...and also not such a great thing as the bus drivers didnt quite know where they were taking us! So my middle experience started with an hour and a half lying under the trees in the prestart as the buses were timed ridiculously early. Having got myself in racing mindframe, proceeded to the start arena. I spent the last minutes before the start scraping mud and clay off the bottom of my shoes as they were clogged up before even starting!

So pick up the map and off down the start chute. immediately see route choice to 1. left choice looks slower so i take middle road to 2nd junction then cut through green stripes and white and through to control. clean, nice. two downers: firstly as firstish start cutting through is bit slower, although already theres a bit of atrack, secondly, didnt see track to right which prob was way faster. still im happy to get no.1 cleanly which has been a problem in the past.

2 is a short leg, up and over. then 3 routechoice, we'd kinda figured they'd give us a routechoice over the zigzag path. looks pretty even to me so i make decision to take the zigzag and just go for it. About this point i realise that despite my careful preperation, i have a song stuck inmy head. and not any old song, but the world games theme tune that was playing over and over at the start...and its in taiwanese so i dont even know what im singing!! anyway... 4. make my way through the little paths, control is sneakily hidden away in the tiers of garden, but i spot it pretty quick :P

out of 4 and i do a double take as i notice a patch of olive green on map right where i am, so i turn around and go round it like a good girl...betting 90% of the field went straight though it... anway pick and weave my way through paths then get shoes soaked from the water logged grass round 5. up the hill to 6, legs starting to feel it from sprint the day before... back the way i came to 7, giving me a little time to read ahead. same with 8.

mistime my jump coming out of 8 and run straight into fence, right infront of a roaming patrol of policemen, they laugh, i hurt. straight through to 9, then i make a complete mess of my exit. If there's one thing i learn here its not to bother trying to cut corners,just stay on the track...actually i dont learn this cos i make the same mistake later! according to the gps replay i then decide to cool off and swim across to 10...really i hurdle the hedge and up the spur. back down my track from no1 and in, nice. have trouble with a wall thats a little high to jump on way to 11. eventually overcome my height issues by going around it. must admit i walk a bit up hill...so hot...so tired. and down the hill to spectator control, flip map over whilst running across carpark, almost die when i see 2nd half... also spectator control is real hard to spot! luckily clem is there with water, he isnt hard to spot :)

second half of course has a lot more straight running in it. not good as 1st half was like a sprint course and i prob expended more energy than i should have on it! so yeah 12-13 is a long (or feels long) path run, so so tempted to walk but no i did not come this far to walk, so somehow find a way to keep going! more road running to 14, cut the corner through funny shin high grass stuff. Decide to just go for it over the stony ground to 15 instead of tiptoeing along the paths, same across to 16.

up to road from 16, bump into another roaming patrol of 10 or so policemen. dont think they were the same as at 8. if so im running real slow...(or theyve got cars). Into the jungle for 17 and 18, vines everywhere (if i remember correctly) just like the wellington bush :) decide it isnt worth going down to path 17-18 so contour it, hit it fine. then hurdle the stream and ditch and guts it up the hill to 19, and back down to 20, do my best to smile at the camera, but probably comes out as a grimace.

halfway through the road run 20-21 it occurs to me that im actually going to finish this course, so i somehow manage to up the pace (i was in self preservation mode up til now). Another guts up the hill to the control. mind is gone with the heat so for some reason bash through tennis court rather than taking path. however do remember to take it carefully into 22, which alot of people forgot to and lost time on. so happy there. still, didnt hit it 100% cleanly. THen bush bash it out to 23 and into the finish chute, i try to put a sprint on, but die instead. Still, having started 4th I'm the leader at the finish which is awesome...until hanny comes in a couple of minutes later and smashes my (and everyone elses) time!!

And the rest of the day is consumed with trying to cool down (icepack down bra is a proven effective method) and then watching everyone else race ! :) Overall world games was the most amazing trip i've been on. the terrain was certainly different, if not entirely suited to my strengths. But i've come away determined to improve my running speed and encouraged that i can foot it with the best in the world!

Onwards and Upwards

WOC is over, JWOC is over, the analysis has been done. Some have had a break, some have just started having a break and now its probably time to start thinking about where to from here?

So where do you want to go? What do you want to achieve? You need some goals...or if you have already got some you need to re-evaluate. If you dont already know how to set goals then here's a website that might help you. The key things to think about when setting a goal is to make sure it is: Specific, Measureable, Attainable, Relevent, Time-framed.

Bad example of a goal: "Win Nationals next year"

Good example: "To be M21E National Champion in the Middle Distance at the NZ Nationals 2010"

And remember...

“Goals that are not written down are just wishes.”

Ross: Sprint Final

An Em's Eye View of WOC

I enjoyed the post and picture's on Chris and Em's blog. Although Im surprised living in Trondheim she didnt mention anything about setting up a campsite in her lounge for visiting kiwi orienteers...Ross has also posted all his maps

Why we dont have a hottest elite man poll...

Because nearing 40, the Flash still has it going on...