Tuesday, July 3, 2012

WUOC - Long Distance

Finish
I raced the long distance today. It was held on the map Pantano de Tibi, which is North West of Alicante.  It was 1:15000 with 5m contours. It was mountainous terrain where the slopes just crumbled under you. Also there was the battle of how early could you start before it really heated up.  The girls course was 6.8km with 19 controls and 400 meters of climb, I ran the B- butterfly.

I got the 7:00am bus after sleeping through the alarm and being very grateful that Keith came banging on the door to wake us up! We finally got the the start and was faced with a nice climb up the road right from the start! The pre-start area wasn't even really set up when we got there and there was a HUGE dog running around named Hugo.He was an event organizers 120 pound brown Great Dane. However, according to Toni (UK coach) "That isn't a dog, that's a horse!" He liked the Hungarians a lot but was finally led out of the start area after protest from some of the coaches.

I was quite nervous at the start about this race. I got stung/bit yesterday at the model and it wasn't reacting well :/ Then the way to the start we had a -20min call up which was weird. You had 17 mins on the warm up map between the first call up and the -3min call up. I only went to visit half of the controls before making my way to the start and was glad I did. It was nice to stand at the start for a bit, pour some water over me, and gather my thoughts.

My Map



I had a decent run for me as lost time really only in route choices and the first crossing point. I took the start of the course slow to get into the map and I think that paid off. I had a bobble at 1 as I started looking for the control too soon as thought the spur was going straight too long. This however I think helped me get a feel for the scale, so although time was lost maybe time was gained? I was feeling really strong in the  middle/butterfly section. Controls were just showing up exactly where I was expecting them to. Anne from the UK was with me, but she wasn't leading the whole time. We were leading each other into controls and that was a huge confidence booster for me! Normally although navigating myself the UK girls lead, so this was a nice change from past JWOCs! Then I got to control 14, drank water and made for the crossing point. This crossing point though I feel was unfair and should have been streamered. You either were lucky and hit the trail or got stuck and could lose loads of time! I was unlucky in this case being one of the first out, I got stuck. Probably lost about 5mins making my way down the reveen, trying to get through brambles, and up the other side. Pulled a Chinese guy out of the brambles and then he had to help me up the far side once we crossed, too short :( . It wasn't orienteering and it wasn't fun! Then after that experience didn't pick the optimal route to 15, but clean navigation. I ran up to the small trail in the flat, then up to the road, and cut up the reentrant where the road Us to the top of the hill and dropped down. The faster route was to go all the way along the first trail to the road and then attack from the smaller trail. I just never saw that when out there. The rest of the course was fine. Came back with two holes in my new pants, a lot of cuts, and hot! But thats where the stories come from right?

Here is a Link to the results

 I'm now excited for the middle with how the short legs of this went. But on to the Sprint tomorrow!

Out towards the course

They made shade for us!

The finish - must have been sponsored by coke
Please don't forget about my Chip-in!

1 comment:

  1. Course looks pretty physical in such heat. I see Alisa's sister is competing. Good luck inthe sprints - go for it and watch for the traps

    ReplyDelete