WUOC 2014: Long Distance

Today was the WUOC long distance race. I was the last USA female to start but I wasn't really too concerned about this race anyway as the game plan was to just run it steady and clean.

The Long distance race in most international competitions is known to be long and a tough physical race, and this one was no different! The women had 8.3km long course with a grueling 460m of climb, but let me tell you it felt in places it was a lot more than that!

A bit about the area: So Nectavské Údolí is a massive valley. The map is dived in half by the major valley and has a road and railway line running through it (and much to our disappointment we didn't get to ride in an old steam train to the event like the newsletter claimed :( ) Then off the main valley are multiple deep and curved valleys leading to very steep hillsides and distinct hilltops. The forest is mostly "high, clean and very runnable"  (if contouring along a steep hillside or climbing up a steep hill one defines as runnable sure!) There are also patches of dense woods and a patch network which is quite dense. Mostly major paths running along the hill sides.

From the warm up area - Photo by James

We had to be in quarantine by the first starter at 9am so it was a bit of a long wait to race for me. By about an hour before my start though I started warming up. Even the warm up map was quite hilly. I ended up only going to two controls on the warm up map and struggled with them so in the end just turned back. I didn't want to get frustrated before I even started nor did I want more climb than I had to do today. So tried to calm myself down after the disaster of the warm up, just kept telling myself "those are the two controls you messed up today, they are out of the way now" and some how that must have worked. Was the acceptable amount of nervous at my call up time of 11:27am. Although the call up lines confused me, will need to remember to read about the set up more for the middle.



As soon as I turned over the map my heart sank though. Long leg to control 2 no chance of getting into the map before having to deal with my least favorite part of a long. Thankfully there was an elephant track pretty much to control 1 so had some time to plan 2. Getting to 1 though was where I first found out about how lose the ground was on these slopes. Dirt just slipped out from under your feet. There was no way I was going to be happy about taking these down hills at speed. Made it to 1 and then down to the track to head towards 2. 1-2 was where I'm not sure I picked the best route but for the whole course I'm happy in that I picked a route and executed them all pretty much totally cleanly. So 2 decided you were going to have to climb at least once, possibly twice. I picked a fairly straight/left route for the first 3/4 of the leg and then once I hit the major trail at the hight of the control I just ran around the track and dropped into the control from the top. This is the leg I would like to see what others did though because one girl came into the control from the north with me and another from the west. Looking back at it there is once very around option to the right and up the stream but I didn't see it then. anyway it was clean so just kept going.
I had three girls vaguely around me for almost up to control 5. Took the lower main trail to three and in through the white green gap to the control. Then there was an elephant track for a good portion of leg 4, but also picked the pace up a little bit to keep the girls in sight so that I had an idea of where the track was going, and then saw the last girl in the group punch 4 which was nice. They all slowed down up the hill to 5 so ended up catching back up with them to pick our way up to clearing in-between the two main tracks. They pulled away again on the main track around the hill but I just let them go knowing I needed a steady race and that this wasn't the event I was racing full out. So didn't have the advantage of seeing them punch control 5 so got into the control circle and was very confused. I was standing in the green between the clearing and where I thought the trail was and just didn't see the control. While scratching my head looked far enough behind me to actually see a dad and his daughter at the water stop and THEN saw the control. Dop! Took the energy drink and headed off up the hill. But again felt like I hit the trail odd coming out of 5 so was feeling on the edge of confusion. Slowed it down but still when I hit the multi patch junction I was just that slightly turned around or maybe nervous that I almost headed off up the wrong track. But corrected before I even left the junction so not a big deal and dropped into control 6 fine. Then leg 7 was quite nice as the first part again had an elephant track for me, well once I saw it. Crossed the stream fine and started heading up the hill and just saw the green and yellow and thought "damn I don't really want to go through that!" and out popped an elephant track that lead me all the way around the top of the and through the yellow reentrant just like I was wanting to do :) Went to the second distinct tree and contoured into the control hitting it just fine!
Controls 8 and 9 felt a bit odd but mostly were compass legs anyway so didn't really matter. I could see 8 from quite a ways up the hill but it didn't seem to be on a feature and guys were going into punch it, but it was on my line so I was going to at least check the code, and oh yes when I got there is was mine. Then took it fairly slow to control 9 because i wasn't really seeing the trails I was crossing over but really should have just gone for it as the reentrant behind the control was distinct.
Now Control 10 was the first leg I know I picked the wrong route to! I went left and over the hill on the trails that way and in through a bit of green to the field. Should have gone right and there was no climb at all. Think I must have had my map folded too small or just didn't see the loop that far away from the line. Stupid mistake and lost time and leg energy there. But came through the spectator controls at around an hour so perfect time for a gel! Or so I thought haha.
Trying to take a gel while climbing up these crumbling slopes was not my best idea, but it took longer to down the gel than I thought. So it would have been a sight to see me one handed struggle up the hill while trying to one handedly squeeze the gel in my mouth. Thankfully Colm had gotten me the lovely ISO gels that taste great and don't need water so it was better than it could have been!

Leg 12 was just mean! I'm not really sure what the best route here was, So i picked a simple one i thought and went for it. Up to the second big trail on the hill. Along to the corner with the wet ditch junction. Slowly up the wet ditch, which at the top of it was where I saw a Swiss and finish girl trudging up behind me. Then up the trail to the left past the fenced area and around on the main trail around the hill to the top of 12 and in. Again almost falling/sliding on my butt down to the control as the ground was so loose.
Leg 13 was fine just contoured around to the ride and along to the hill top, getting another glass of ISO drink there. At this point I saw Tori Owen coming up the hill and so had her just behind me the rest of the course, but was trying hard not to pick up my pace at all and ignore her. I went back out to the main track and around to the kinda paved junction of trails. It was more just a field though. Then the lower trail all the way to go right along the spur and drop into the control. Where I was surprised to see a camera man standing not that far away from the control making finding the pit even easier which was nice. Elephant track out of the control to the main trail and all the way around the hill to 15.
Going down to the last control was basically an elephant track as well but I managed to still trip up on something and did a wonderful faceplant! Was really hoping the guy behind me wouldn't trample on me and glad no one could see us yet! Then had a fun wee sprint finish with tori to the line.

Overall I'm very happy with this run. It was clean and I think I picked mostly the right route choices for me, and executed them well. I ended up in 52nd place out of 86 and only 24mins behind the winner. I'm just hoping my leg recover fast enough to put in an even better middle race. My For goodness Shake Strawberry flavor recovery drink was soooo nice when I finished :)

Full Results
Better Map

WUOC 2014: Long training

Sunday morning the team piled into the car to go off to the Long model event. It was about a 40min drive away but through some pretty countryside with twisting roads. The model map area was on a map called Sládkova skála and the women's course was 6.9km 170m 11c

ditch/vegetation change between S/F

the clearing of the finish looking towards road

I decided I was just going to steady run this course and see how I was feeling in terrain. It was made a little bit harder since there were no controls out but that only really stopped me at 3 of them (3, 9, 11) where I wasn't 100% sure where the control might have been hung. But other than that I was feeling like I could move and read the map well.

Some of the things I wanted to invetigate:
1) how steep it actually was going to be. Since the middle/relay is really flat and the long in meant to be steeper.
      -      So It was a bit steeper but nothing I couldn't easily run up (thank you hill running and base training!) However have been warned that the actual Long area is a bit more steep in places then this map.

2) Was the Vegetation and trails as obvious as they were in the middle model and good to use for navigation?
      -      The vegetation and trails visually seemed to be very similar to that of the middle model. However, what I would have expected to be yellow at times felt a lot more like open rough. So for example ended up running through a small field in the middle of the woods and it was actually harder to run though than the white woods around it :/ so not sure how you can tell how fast some of the vegetation is going to be but possibly a thing to shuffle around then run through.

3) How to possibly deal with the long leg? what kinda long leg does the course setter like? as the model event was planned by the same person who has planed the long distance race.
     -      I'm feeling like I actually picked an ok route for the long leg, however I did not execute it very well. I think one is going to need to find the fastest easiest way to get near the control and power fast to there and then slow and precise into the control. Or possibly for me even break it into "2-legs" find a point half way along my route navigate to there, and then to my attackpoint and into the control. I could see me zoning out if the long leg is really vague though.

So the first control was easy enough but learnt that I'm going to need to look up when I get in the area of the control if it is a distinct tree because one needs to find the leafy tree vs the pine. The second control I decided I would try cutting through some green to see if it was any faster because I had the first big road to hit. It was actually not too bad but I think that was because A) the darker green was so thin and B) because the lighter green the trees were pretty much planted in the lines the direction I was going, Think it would have been a bit slower going 90º the other way. But once I hit the road I was on the trail connecting me to the next big trail and that was actually smaller than I was expecting so will have to watch out for openings for trails fully in green I think. I then got a bit turned around coming off the big control. COMPASS ALISON! silly mistake and ended up going along the trial into the control, but in a way thinking that might have been the better attack anyway.
Then 3 - So the plan was to go right of straight. I wanted to hit the trail running along the green patch SW of control 9. use that to hit the road, pretty much hit #8 cross over to the next big trail, down the reentrant to the stream and up the hill close to the junction to cross over the two other trails and then slow into the green. Well I never hit that trail ended up pretty much closer to control 9 and then was sloppy from there into the control and confused by what the knoll actually was :/ Nightmare as not any more confident about long legs now. But here I did it without fully not knowing where I was.
Then tail end of 4 to5 was also an issue for me. I managed to get myself turned around with my compass and then the vegitation wasn't matching up the way I would have liked. I needed to have looked at my compass a bit better before heading into the green as didn't find the trail I was wanting to but thankfully hit the trail running along the hill and into the control fine.
I sailed through most of the other controls only having to really stop about 9 and 11 just not sure I was actually on the exact feature but was in the area. Hoping that if it was on a knoll because they were all very small that I would have seen the control anyway. Same with control 11 as the reentrant that I'm very sure it was meaning to be was SUPER shallow.

So overall learnings. The Long is going to be a bit hillier - and I hear even more so than this model map. It is going to be not as nice underfoot to run through the woods - and apparently this model map was the nicer section of woods. So from both of those things along I think I might be picking trail options if trying to go through green more so than battling my way through. On the long leg I have to stay focused the whole time. The whole course I need to look at my compass a bit more than I did for this run and be more precise with my bearings. I think however my running ability I should be fine with the distance and climb though which is nice :) 

Next up the Sprint Relay!

POM Day 4: Long Distance

This was the last day of POM. Was sad to end the competition as was finally feeling like I was cracking how to race here, But then again think my legs were close to having enough haha. Again we were on the same map, Arcozelo Da Serra, with the same spectator control as the last few days. Today however was a chasing start, ie first one across the line wins the full event. So in the Elite categories our total times for the last 3 days were totaled and if we were within an hour of the leader we started in the chasing start. I was 47:28 behind Simon Niggle who was winning so I started exactly that behind her. Kirsten Maxwell was only about 30seconds in front of me so some motivation to be clean!

This was a bit tricky to start with as the map scale was 1:15,000 not the 1:10,000 we had been running on. Was a bit worried to start with I wasn't going to be able to read all the rock. Might think about training with a magnifier just for long races like this!
Had a clean but slow first control, but was needed as a confidence boost. Control 2 I ended up half way to 3 and was like this doesn't feel right! I had managed to miss the end of the trail and had just kept running went through two rocks and turned around knowing I had gone too far (opposite of what I thought I was going to do today, which was not go far enough!) Saw Kirsten leaving control 2 so knew it couldn't have been that big a mistake :/ Caught her and another girl caught me going to control 3 and there were 3 of us to control 4. Was glad to have a few people around on the first long leg just as a confidence boost and to push my pace a little bit. Went to the wrong side of the rock into 4 and had to go right around but nothing major. the next few controls were nice as fairly big features could been seen from a distance that the control was near. Almost ran past control 7 though! Was keeping up with Kirsten and another girl for ages as well which I was quite proud of didn't think I had that much speed for this distance. I could tell though that Kirsten was trying hard to get ride of me! At control 11 we had a nice surprise though! It was a water control on our descriptions but wasn't expecting to also get a chest deep river crossing along with it!

Photo by Miguel Barradas

Legs weren't too happy just after that with it being fairly chilly. Was close to cramping as we went into the short Urban bit of the course, so glad the navigation was a bit easier. bobbled going to control 14 which was the first one after the urban back in the rock. Just didn't hit the small trail before it like I was wanting to but almost nailed the control about 5m to the right of the control. Then it was the sprint up the hill to stay with Kirsten into the spectator control. (I was really starting to hate that hill!) After the spectator control we had a trail run to where the "butterfly" loop was. Because kirsten was the girl starting ahead of me I knew we were going to have a different way around the loop. I went counter clock wise and then straight through and I found out at the end that the others went straight through at first and then around. I was fairly clean through the loop but both me and another girl had difficulties on the through bit. I think I just didn't go far enough and then had a hard time relocating. Kirsten got a much bigger gap there. Then control 22 which was the first out of the loop I went into it too late and bumbed around the control circle a bit too long before finding it. Felt like the control wasn't actually on bare rock :/ I was getting a bit tired by this point. Picked a poor route to 24 as well. I should have gone back up the hill and along the fields to drop back down to it. But I legged it down the hill and along the trial just to slog my way back up through the forest. Silly Alison! Then it was basically home :)

I ended up running close to 14km for the 10.5km course. I feel like that wasn't too bad though. Also I was only 128% of Simon Niggle's time who won the course and POM overall and is the Queen of Orienteering. That was a big motivator to the fact that I'm improving. So just need to work on a few smaller things and get my longer distance fitness up I think.

Overall POM was great! The experience in this rocky terrain was amazing. I have never run in anything like this before. Also getting another multi-day event under my belt. And getting to race against the best in the world was amazing, so much to learn! So time to reflect at home and train train train!