Fornicator flashing up the rankings

Check out Chris and Em's blog for the latest on the heroic story of the Fornicator vs the world of orienteering.

I couldn't help noticing though that Chris is looking more and more like Dazza 'the flash' Ashmore every time I see a picture...

What lies under these trees?

What exactly does Nationals Sprint 2010 have install for us on the banks of the Clutha?

Training training training!

Very comprehensive resource!

B4 Nu Years

Things have been pretty quiet on here for a while, but that doesn't mean there hasn't been any orienteering going on! For me the last month and a half alone has included coaching on the national junior camp, the B4 Nu years events, the epic inaugral sprint the bays, national/d-squad camp and the jwoc trials. Sprint the Bays is definitely worth a write up, but i've been meaning to write about B4 Nu Years for a while, so here goes and if you're lucky (or unlucky) i'll get round to STB in a month or so!

SO between Christmas and New Years, Orienteering Taranaki hosted 7 events in and around New Plymouth in the B4NY tour. 6 of these were short park-o style events held over three days, culminating in the 7th race, the Turkey Traverse on New Years eve. The traverse connected all of the 6 previous maps in a 21km race from the mountain (almost) to the sea. And I have to say, aside from the curious use of text speak in the name, i thoroughly enjoyed these events!

The first day kicked off with an open course on Brother's Farm. Angela Simpson showed her intentions for the year with an outstanding outright win. 2nd place was Magnus Bengtsson, closely followed by Mark Lawson, who may have been just a bit tired from his mission around Lake Waikaremoana the day before! That afternoon we all moved on to Audrey Gale, where the courses consisted of open park running, seamlessly combined with jungle bush bashing.

The second day of races saw us once again relocate, this time to the magnificent Pukekura Park, home of the festival of the lights. For both races the start and finish were located in perhaps the best setiing for an event centre I have ever seen, with a massive semicircular bank providing seating for a couple of thousand people. Unfortunately for us, the rain was pretty settled in, and there were only 60 odd people at the event, so racers had to instead settle for an audience of a couple of hundred confused ducks. Both races at Pukekura park provided plenty of practice at public dodging, mud sliding and bush bashing. All in all, great fun!

spotted: one confused duck

Unfortunately for me, by the morning of the third day of races, i succombed to the stomach virus that had been eating away at me all week, and finally conceded that racing probably wasnt the best idea for me. (up until then my race technique was to roll out of the car 5mins before my start, and promptly collapse back in bed after finishing). So for the final two days my role was reduced to team photographer, which i thought i did a decent job of!

sarah gray succombs to some surprise photography Mark Lawson on Hoaketanga west

Anyway sob story aside, i can't say much about the 5th race, as i spent the entire time curled up in bed. However i did crawl out in the afternoon to watch and support the crew at Hoeketanga West. Of the 6 short courses, this was definitely the most sprint like, with Karl Dravitzki setting some good courses through the parks and complex building systems. Aside from the courses, the cloud finally cleared for the first time in the week, revealing that there is indeed a mountain in Taranaki!

New Years Eve dawned bright and sunny for the climax of the week, the Turkey Traverse. Having dropped the survivors of our group off at the start, Lisa and I went out to various points on the 20km course to support and photograph. It was great fun, and certainly a new perspective for me to see the race from a spectators view. It was great being able to see the gaps widen and close and positions switch over throughout the race, and then having to hear the full stories later from tired but excited competitors! In short, local boy Karl ran away with the win, with Mark Lawson finishing 8 minutes back. Greg Flyn, Angela Simpson and Magnus Bengtsson were running together for a large part of the course, before some costly mistakes and tiredness after the final map change split the trio up. Greg finishing 3rd followed by Magnus and Angela. An amazing race especially considering she is still a junior! full results can be found here

Magnus traversing like a turkey Tessa Ramsden traversing it up

With the main race over, all that remained to be done was to see in the New Year, or in my case collapse back in to bed and sleep of a stomach virus!

All in all, despite the sickness i thoroughly enjoyed the week. It was great fun to have a series of reasonably low key, social events which were very well organised and run by Orienteering Taranaki. A huge thanks to them, and also to Sarah Tessa Lisa and Magnus, for putting up with me all week. cheers guys!

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

Orienteers at the Frontrunner Off Road Running series

This series set up by Al Cory-Wright, has been happening for several years now. As it is pure off road running the events have typically been dominated by Orienteers. There is 3 events in the series, The first is a race up and down Mt Vernon - A brutal single track up a valley that gets steeper and steeper the closer you get to the top followed by a steep flat out decent that gets steeper and steeper the closer you get to the bottom. I find this one the toughest, there is no let up. The next from Taylors Mistake out to Godley head and back - Fast and flat, small hill at the Godley Head then flat along the top with a steep decent into Taylors Mistake. The final race is in Sumner - Flat hard run to end of the beach then up a steep hill, long hill up followed by a long down hill and a flat long straight at the end. Its no coincidence that Carsten and Marty Lukes have battled it out in the previous years. But this year it was time for some others to take over...

Carsten did himself some damage selling off his rocks on trademe and rendered his back too sore to compete in the series this time....All three events were won by a Temporary visitor from England, Mark Tucket. Tane Cambridge had to play second fiddle to Tucket and ended up a close second in the first two races and third place in the remaining race to take out second overall for the series. Lara Prince was out paced by a very quick triathlete who did very well and would have placed in the top ten in the mens grade. Lara ended up second overall in the women's grade. Tim Farrant screwed the system and managed to compete in the junior grade, completing a clean sweep of all the events to win probably his last Junior event...he even got all the competitors in his grade up for a photo (only thing is he didn't have any one with a camera to take a photo....). Junior Alistair Richardson was also second in the series to another Papo Orienteer Ryan Batin who completed a clean sweep of the under 16 grade. Ryan's Sister Rebecca also came second in the under 16 girls grade.

Full Results

The NZ Great Santa Run

Forgive me for blowing my own trumpet but I am officially the fastest Santa in Christchurch. Just imagine a hot Nor-west day in Christchurch, putting on a 100% polyester Santa Suit and running around Hagley Park. Probably not a wise idea in dodgy Hagley Park on most occasions except... last Wednesday evening! Half of the entry fee went to Cure Kids so it was all in aid of a good cause, and plus we ran past the hospital so all the kids in Hospital got to cheer us on...well so they told us in the briefing...When I ran past in the lead going into the final straight they all had a good laugh!

There was a series of Santa runs all around NZ all co-ordinated to start at the same time. A few orienteering names popped up in the results. The best performed orienteers were those in Christchurch, Myself winning and Tim Farrant coming in third. It was a pretty cool event well worth doing for the extra heat and Sprint training!

HP Calender

In the spirit of information and keeping things as transparent as possible a High Performance Calender including important events and selection dates has been released by the High Performance Director Carsten Jorgenson. The calender is here, and a link has been added to the links menu on left.