POM Day 3: WRE Middle Distance

Well today was the important WRE day. Same area was yesterday but starting on the other side of the road and so had a marked road crossing as part of the spectator section in the arena.
Wasn't feeling super fresh this morning, but was happy enough on my jog to the start and warming up. Thought I got myself calmed down and ready to go in the start blocks and was feeling confident and in control heading off.

Well that lasted for probably 2 minutes. Think I was about half way to the control and then Poof nothing was matching up! And the panic set in pretty quickly. I was having a hard time keeping my compass work steady and felt like every time I looked at it it changed direction on me. I honestly have not a notion of what was going on and was getting annoyed that I couldn't see what I thought should have been an obvious 6m high rock!! Ended up finding control 5 and 8 before finally making it to control 1. Well pressure off, there went my clean race, now just make the rest clean! Well I did that for the rest of the tricky controls in all the rocks. Some how things clicked back in and managed a flow through controls 2-10 with only a few small bobbles. Was pushed along with a few other girls that caught and then passed me as well. Then comes leg 10-12. Was with another girl at this point and saw her just ahead of me leaving the control off to the east. Didn't see a route to the right I liked. Looked at the left route which I really didn't like. So straight it was! And this is where I'm going to point out that it would have been VERY useful to have known that in Portugal the cultivated fields (yellow with black dots) are fair game! To me that is an out of bounds symbol and therefore was going wellish to the trees pockets just before the fields and then skirted the fields and battled my way through a TON of darkish green thorns to get to the control when had i run through the fields it would have been a dead easy entry into the control. Well we live and learn I suppose, but lost quite a bit of time there for that grrr. Not to bad through to 12 and 13. Was then a bit high for 14 which was silly! I saw people running away from that control when i was running to the start. Through the spectator control in the arena and straight down the hill into the rocks again. I was fairly clean through the last little loop apart from a few places getting stuck on top of rocks I didn't realise were actually that tall on the other side.

Overall came back and wasn't happy about this race. I knew I can run much better than this! But hey we all have bad days and all we can do is look at them and take them as a learning lesson. I was supposed to learn something from this, and I think I have. That one must be focused from the start and don't just go running off thinking "its a huge rock I'll find it!". Also that part of an international competition prep I should find out if there are things that are different than at home.

Spectator control for Elites

Go control - after a long hill!

Arena for the last three days

Rocks!

POM Day 2: Middle Distance

 Today was the first of the two middle distance races at POM. It was held on a map called Arcozelo Da Serra. This is the area for the rest of the POM. The assembly was a football pitch and that is also where we finished. The terrain is described as:

 "Varied terrain composed by a forest slope, with rocky details, where there is a variation between forest and open areas. Also cultivated areas and areas with difficult progression and visibility. "

It was a little bit more open than day 1 but still fairly green in places. I jogged to the start with Kirsten which was nice to kinda just chat and relax before. Then we went off and did our own drills and pre-race thoughts. She was starting two minutes behind me, but was trying not to let that pressure me at all. The plan for today was: to be calm, Look for the big features, and use my compass! 

The first control although a bit slow getting to was alright. Then got in the control circle to two and was having to check every boulder :/ Then 3 was where I really lost time. Went and just legged it to the path, but once i got to the path was a bit confused by which path was which and the rock walls and everything. Checked my compass and decided to ignore it all and just aim for the big rock. Well I think I ended up on the wrong side of the rock and ended up running quite far past the control. Bugger! figured out where I was and was heading back into the control when I see Kirsten coming out of it. I remember thinking "well there is the pressure off she has caught me now". But really that was probably the underlying mistake was that I was feeling rushed. Anyway calmed down and got into a rhythm and ended up staying with Kirsten for most of the course. Had a few bobbles in places and wasn't using my compass well enough. But powered through! Literally in one spot where I ended up pretty much going for a surprise swim when crossing a marked trail through some cultivated land. Then it was a big slog up the hill for a few controls and into the finish.

Overall it wasn't too bad of a race at all. ended up 55 out of 107 so very close to the top half which is what I wanted. Plus this run put me only +46% of Niggle's time which I think wasn't bad going. 

Tomorrow's WRE event is on the same area so what have I learned?

5 things to work on to gain time:
1. compass out of controls
2. simplifying the map
3. picking out the BIG rock features
4. Reading my control descriptions (not just number)
5. be calm/focused at the start

5 things I did "perfectly":
1. forgetting about past controls
2. good routes towards end of course
3. slowing down when I thought I was in the circle to minimize searching
4. picking up on smaller contour detail when I slowed down
5. Physically able to hold an ok pace

POM Day 1: Night Sprint

After the classic event Martin and I stopped at lidl to stock up on food to power us through a night sprint in the evening! The sprint was held in the town of Gouveia. The womens elite had 1.9km (with the best route being almost 3km!) and 22 controls.

This race was interesting as it was SUPER misty and pretty much pissing rain the whole time. Jogging up to the start with Emily Kemp was actually a bit miserable! But Emily being her bubbly happy self, well it was just infectious! I was excited about running once I got to the start. (miss Emily wish I got to see her more!) Got to the start and all ready to go and you could just tell it was going to be interesting when your head torch almost just gives a line of dispersed light in the mist not actually allowing you to see things. But who cared this was going to be a bit of fun!

Well oh boy was I glad I did this sprint! Not because I had the best run ever, not because I was clean and just flowed. No because this was probably one of the trickest areas I've done a sprint in for a while and then to have it at night and trying hard to work out what was crossable and what wasn't! The area around 1 and 9 got me both times I was in there! totally could not understand what i could cross and what I couldn't. Think I picked the right routes up until 6 where I actually think the faster route might be to go round the bigger road that 5 is on and up at the end and not pick your way through the smaller streets like I did. Then 8 was a great stumper! well done to the planner, or maybe the person who built the city. 8 was wall inside corner. Well got to the stairs and right away knew it wasn't going to be there but couldn't figure out where it was, then i stood on the first step looked down and there was the control about 1.5m below me in a TINY walled ditch thing. So next question: how does one get down there?! Well knew it had to be along the wall but hadn't actually seen how far along the wall yet on the map. Actually ran past the small steps down and had to come back at it. Crazy! Then 9 i just couldn't figure out how to get passed the walls and what i could cross and not it was a mess! 10, 11, 12 no bother. Almost ran past the stars up to the spectator control 13, ops! Straight to 14. Then carried on along the road from 14, and up the hill on the road to 15 nailing the stairs. Probably should have continued up the stairs to 16 but came back down. Then the last few controls in the garden was tricky figuring out which hedge it was on what side of.

A lot of fun! And came 18th out of 38. And it was won by Emily Kemp which was very exciting!

POM DAY 1: Classic Distance

For the first day of POM it was what they termed an "Intermediate race" for everyone. Which really was just what I would have called a classic distance in the states. The Elite Women had 7.4km, 200m and 29 controls.
The map was Vila Nova de Tazem and we had it at 1:10,000. and the terrain was decribed as:

"Terrain with many variations between forest and open areas, with a great richness of rocky details. Medium slope and variation between fast progression areas and areas where the vegetation causes difficulty in the progression."

And I would have to agree that that was pretty darn accurate! The rock detail was MUCH greater than the model map and it was not nearly as open as the model so harder to pick out the big features from as far away. The elites also had a spectator control with a map exchange. so many things to think about!

I started at 12:17 so kind of mid pack and was feeling pretty calm at the start. Jogged up with a few of the brits and did my stretching and was ready to go! Get into the start box pull my control descriptions down and the first difference for the race was we only had control decriptions for the first 20 controls :/ so to the map change. Fine deal with that when we get there but odd. 

Map Part 1 - https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B5be1b1Sze1kc3pibTF4X25yOUk&usp=sharing

Started off great nailed control 1, bit of a bobble to control two. This was when I figured out I was going to have to be a bit careful reading small trails and rock walls quickly. Was expecting a trail to connect up to another one and it was actually a rock wall! Then hit my first more technical section and knew I was going to have to be more careful than in the model. Pretty much nail 3 and 4 and Jess Tullie caught me up going to control 5. The two of us made the same mistake going to 6 which was the first control in the really rocky section of the map. We ended up hitting 7 above first and having to drop back down to 6. We then had a clean run to 13 kinda just taking very similar routes just over taking each other every so often. Then I passed Jess at 14 where she over shot and I hit pretty close to dead on the control. Hit the next few just fine and thought I got away from jess but she must have picked the better route on the long leg to 18 and caught me up again. So came through the map exchange together along with another runner who was announced as in 2nd place. All very exciting! This is where I started to find not having control descriptions for the rest of the course a bit annoying. It was basically relay practice, but wasn't expecting it.

Part 2 - https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B5be1b1Sze1kc3pibTF4X25yOUk&usp=sharing

The rest of the course was really a bit of a blur as I tried hard to hold on to this train of runners that was developing. Was clean and able to hold on for almost to control 25 and then was just having to push the pace on my own and really stay focused. Bit of issues with 27, starting with trying to cut through some of the green as loads of people where going in there. Took a few steps in and turned around to do the trail all the way around. Then was a bit hesitant going into the control as knew i was in the right area but didn't really see the reentrant, only the control once i got my head up enough to see it.

Ended up placing 42nd out of 94. So happy with top half and managed to beat all the EUOC girls and Louise Oram. Also was close to Jessica Tullie which was nice to see as she is a strong runner and navigator!

Went for a cool down run with Jess, James and Peter afterwards and the highlight was us getting excited about olive trees and trying an olive off the tree. NOT one of our better ideas! It was VERY sour and made my tong purple. It was as odd as getting handed Hot green tea when I finished.

POM 2014 : Trainings

This Year's Portugal Orienteering Meeting (POM) is based all around Gouveia, which is up in the mountains in the middle region of Portugal. I'm here traveling with a family friend Martin Wilson, who kindly let me tag along to get some big races in.

We arrived in Portugal on Wednesday (after our plane from London was turned around on the first attempt for "operational problems") so that we could have two days of training before the races started.



On Thursday we went to the POM Model  on a map Arcozelo da Serra SE. This map is supposed to be similar to days 2,3,4. It was a bit rainy and misty when we first arrived but it cleared up to be a really nice day! The sun even came out! So I just ran round all the controls first taking in the terrain. Afterwards I walked around for a bit to really understand the way the mapper was mapping the rocks. There is going to be a lot of scrambling! its almost faster to keep to the bare rock. And then afterwards I went out and did a few more controls in different orders and stuck in a longer leg that took me through the main rock bit near 42.

Map at 1:10,000

What did I learn?
* The rocks here are HUGE!!!! 
* If you are able to simplify the map down it is very fast running
* The green slash is brambles and should really be avoided as much as possible
* These controls were much easier than the ones in the race will be
* There isn't that big of a difference between the different kinds of rock, however the shapes are mapped very accurately
* A clean run but slow will be MUCH faster than trying to push the pace and getting totally turned around in the rock

Photos from the area:

Near Control 42 the big gap between the cliffs

Control 42 :)

One is marked as a thin cliff line and another a more blob :/

British Univeristy Champsionships - YOU WATT!

February 22nd and 23rd was the British University Orienteering Championships (BUCS) down near Leeds, UK. I was lucky enough to have 4 others from Heriot Watt joining me at BUCS this year!


The trip started with a long mini bus journey down to just north of Leeds with some of the guys from EUOC. We ended at Jack Woods house where his parents kindly let us sleep on their living room floor. There the buzz of BUCS started and people were starting to discuss their plans for the individual the next day. Then the Glasgow team joined us late that night bringing along our last team member for Heriot Watt. We finally got to bed and I was quite comfortable in my sleeping bag when at about 5am the alarm in the house went off. We had been warned that the burglar alarm was acting up but gosh that gave me a fright. Had a bit of a hard time getting back to sleep after that but managed to get a good enough nights sleep :)

Got up fairly early, had a champions breakfast and set off to the Individual event. The Individual event was being held on Ilkley Moor. Despite all the rain at night it was slowly clearing up which was nice. I was fearing having to navigate the moor land in the fog. By the time I got to the start though the sun was out and it was perfect running weather! This year I had a fairly late start time. Only about 4 or 5 girls starting behind me. But tried hard not to think about people who were starting near me or placing or anything. I had been worried all week about placing and was I going to mange the top ten result that I wanted or not. So the warm up to the start and everything was focused on warming my legs up, what the technical things people had told me about the map and trying hard to just visualise running smoothly through the terrain and no hesitations. I was ready to start :)

 

I had a great run! I was a bit hesitant or at least a bit slower than I maybe should have been at the start of the course but was hitting things fine. Had my first real bobble on control 5 where I had just come out of the 4th control too far to the north and hit the bottom instead of the top of the rock wall I wanted. Then it was back up into the moor land where I started to find out that I could easily navigate faster than I could run. So looks like there needs to be some more pentland runs (or at least hills) in my training. But managed fine. The next challenge though was the monster of a long leg! I really should have looked at it a bit more climbing the hill up to 8. But I think overall I picked not too bad of a route. Was able to pretty much stay on tracks the whole way. Was able to keep moving and not feel like I was totally out of contact with where I was along the leg. Wasn't able to follow the path that well through the detailed rock, lost it quite a few times. But always had my eyes on the forest ahead and was able to get through it. Then had a bobble on control 11 I think just because I thought "oh this is short I can easily do this!" and just wasn't paying as much attention as before. I'll then be honest I'm not 100% sure how i did controls 14-16. They just kinda worked and things were popping up just where I was wanting them to and the controls just were there! It was a great feeling. Came back and downloaded and found out I was 3rd on the course! So went for a cool down and waited for the other girls to come in. 

In the final results I ended up in 8th place. So very happy about that as hit my top ten goal and up from 13th place from last year. Also was nice as I'm 8th place out of the girls that are competing for the British WUOC team and not that far behind them! Heriot Watt as a team also came 8th in the overall points after day one!

taken by P.Y. Photographic

The sunday was then the relay. As I didn't have 3 girls at the event Lauren and I teamed up with our EUOC teammate Rachel and ran the Adhoc relay. We did however have 3 guys so they ran in the mens relay and gave it a great fight!

I ran the 1st leg in the Adhoc relay. was nice and battled it out with Sophie from Imperial. Had a bobble at control 4 thinking it was on the further bush clump then it was and had to come back at it. Think there were more clumps then on the map. Then was doing well and just ahead of Sophie before messing up control 7. Went too far again, never seeing the big boulder at the top of the clearing like i was wanting and ended up getting sucked into sophie's control on a boulder just past the field :/ Stupid mistake! Then another bobble on control 10 was too far west but wanted to be west anyway just not that far. Got to the control and saw there was a path basically built to it not on the map :/ Then had the longer last gaffle then sophie at the end. So ended up coming in about 30secs behind her passing off to Lauren.

So bit to relaxed in a few places but not at bad run.

Girls came 2nd in the Adhoc relay and the guys were 20th. That put us in 9th place overall! our best result so far! 

WOC Long Quali

Well I can now say I've been to a WOC race! It was fun to watch but actually not as big a thing as I was thinking it would be. However, It was only a qualification so that is probably why. The big dogs were taking it easy knowing they were going to qualify so just running to make sure that happens and the rest... running flat out trying to have clean runs hoping to make the cut off!





It was fun to be able to cheer for many countries today and have loads of friends and teammates running! The USA did quite well having strong runs and Ali making the final. Ireland were loud and cheery as normal with many of them also having strong runs, with Nick making the final and Neil just on the cut off but not quite making it. Then came the excitement of watching/hearing that Cat Taylor from GB had caught Minna Kauppi by the 3 mins that had separated them at the start. It was a nail biting and adrenaline rushing time waiting for them to finish. But Cat managed to hold on to the lead and came back to win the heat! Very exciting! Was cool to have all the GPS tracking to watch and video footage from the forest. Made me really want to get out on the long terrain it looks amazing! 
Here is a video from the car drive there which kinda gives you a taste as to what it is like: 

Sprint Prep!

Today was the sprint models! 
 I am running the sprint as my race here at WOC. It will take place on Monday July 8th at 08:00
For more information on the whole of WOC go to WorldofO: WOC 2013- all you need to know

Sprint Qualification
We were only allowed on the maps for 3hrs this morning before the embargo goes back on the area. 5 of us drove to the Qualification map first to check it out. We got there a little early so drove around to just look in on the map and see what we could of the arena.



Glad we got there early as was able to have a walk around and check things out before it really started pouring out! I walked around with Wyatt and went through how different trails where mapped (big ones were mapped more like roads), which rocks were mapped (looked like 1m+), and how hedges were mapped. Doesn't look like a terribly technical map and is going to be a very compass and run qualification. I think the biggest thing will be to make sure you know which buildings are around you and what side of hedges the controls are going to be on. That being said it doesn't look as if any of the hedges are actually out of bounds so one could crash through them (even some which are nice rose beds). The question will be is it worth it? Probably not but if you get stuck it was nice to know you could push through if you had to. Also it was nice to decide what to wear. Because of all the hedges and how easy the woods were to run through I'm going to wear fully leg cover and possibly even dobbs, as it did rain a lot today! Getting excited!

Sprint Final

We then drove about 15mins to Sotkamo where the sprint final and opening ceremony are going to take place. We managed to miss most of the heavy rain which was nice. I ran the course here in order as the officials said the out of bounds and taping they had done to demonstrate how it will be on the day were up for that direction of running (ie front not back of things as well). I didn't run it all out but was wanting to get another sense of things at a bit of speed. Think I did actually cross an out of bounds hedge going to 1 (if it is the darkest green on the map, generally used for hedges, you are not allowed to cross it in a sprint race). But then the distinct tree (green dot) next to the control was actually a play swing instead :/
No other real troubles while running the course. Was glad to have streamers up around some of the olive green though! Olive green is another out of bounds color, generally used for gardens around buildings and other flower beds. It is again illegal to go through them.
I then walked back out towards 5 to check out the difference between the yellow and olive green on the north part of the map. In places it wasn't super obvious where the line was but we believe it will be streamered if a route goes near it. Wyatt then picked a few more places for controls for me and he shadowed/met me at most of them and then we chatted about it. Very useful! Other people were saying that fences were mostly uncrossable on the map (designated by a black line with two ticks coming off it, like control 5), yet were easily cross-able in reality. I didn't really notice this but I generally plane to not cross fences anyway with being short and not the best hurdler. We then managed to hop back in the car before it really started pouring with rain again!

Technical Model
This afternoon is going to be a rest up and get ready for racing! We did the "technical" model as well. This is where a starting line procedure is set up for us to walk through and a control or two and this time they had a drinks station as well so people running the longer distances could try the sports drink. On paper it seemed very confusing as have to get control descriptions and a GPS unit (if that race is getting them) and a map all during this time and three different lanes you have to make sure to go in the right one of. But yeah on the ground no problem!

Training and Model events

Started training as soon as I could to start getting used to maps here.
The first map that I ran on was a sprint map of Kajanni which is a town down the road from the event centre. I got a map off Ali/Alex

Wyatt came with me and really set up the start bit for me, giving me control descriptions first then a minute later the map as my start and having me stand a bit away to the start like the real race. This was a really fun sprint. The plan was to take the first part just under race pace to see what things were tripping me up and then ease off towards the end. Not sure I really eased off that much as was enjoying myself :)

I didn't really notice the route kinda backwards out of 1 until most of the way to 2 but thing I managed to just pick fast enough. However still think it was better going backwards out of the control so that is something I'm not going to remember to think about. Another thing was 3 I actually didn't go to the right wall corner. So on your descriptions there are many different columns to them. Here is a great breakdown of them from IOF:

And I noticed that on this sprint I wasn't really using the "G" column enough, the "location of the control flag". I had looked at it and saw it was the wall inner corner NW. However having my map reading it going south it matched up the control code and had there been a control there it would have been a "SH*T" moment. So will be studying these a bit more with the map in different orientations I think.


Some other things I had a little trouble with was a route from 5 to 6. I went left but after talking to wyatt I do think right is better now. As you would go through less of the woods which in this area was actually quite crappy! Which I also found out going to 7 and manage to actually over run as didn't really notice the clearing very well.

Most of the other controls went well and only had small bobbles when a fence was closed that I didn't realise was the opening I wanted and then an underpass was actually a closed on driveway. But it was cool to run around and even like go out to the little island with people picnicking and no one gave you weird looks! Everyone was pretty like oh yeah this is normal.

Local Event: Wyatt and I then drove to a local event to get some terrain running in. It was on a map called matinmakj-lentokentta and I decided to run the short 3.6ish course.

I had a bit of issues with the first control as didn't think I climbed as much as I had and then must not have gone far enough as hit a white patch which i thought was the one on the edge of the controls circle and it wasn't :/ Had to reattach from the trail. I realised that many of these controls could have been found going around on trails but decided to go straight as possible to figure out how things were mapped. only really had other issues with 7 as must have come out of the control lower than i thought and got caught up in the green stuff next to the trail. But overall was a fun course! However, goodness did you NOT want to hang around for too long not moving or the killer flies would start biting you!

Middle Model (July 5th)
Brenden, Cristina and I went to the middle model to check out that terrain. I'm not actually running the middle however it is the same terrain as the Relay which I hope to make the team for.

I had Cristina plan me a course with the controls out in the woods and went out for just under an hour. The first control I ended up taking quite slow as I hit about 3 different type of vegetation on that leg. Figured out that the rough open (yellow with white dots) was very much like felled ground in scotland so slow but not bad to get over, The rides weren't always obvious and that the green wasn't too bad but had tall grass/flowers/nettles in it so slow going along with lower viability. Ended up hitting the cliff south of the one I wanted but relocated quite quickly after pottering about looking at things. Then to control 2 I again tested things. Either through the green and have to really be strong with your compass as can't really see, or cut north a bit to the green slash were one can see but slow going. I think avoiding green slash is the way to go! Many places to catch your ankles in that stuff! The rest of the controls went well and liked how things were mapped. I also got to have Thierry Gueorgiou pass me on the way to 258. It was nice to see even him kinda come back at it but he just flew through the woods just jogging and making it look super easy! I'm hoping I get to do at least a spectator race in the woods!

Orienteering my way to Finland

(Bit of an excerpt from Attackpoint with more added)

Flight from Philly!

I was meant to leave for WOC on July 2nd and well this was not how I was planning the day to go! So was supposed to fly out at 10pm Philly time (to London then Helsinki then Kuopio). I however got a lovely email that morning though saying that my flight was delayed until 0800 the next morning! Well that just wasn't going to work and I was freaking out! I wasn't done packing and had a few things left to do in Philly. Thankfully though my parents are the greatest! Dad started having a look at other flights I could ask to get transferred to, mom helped me quickly pack and get an essay finished. And then mom and I headed to the airport for 2pm to see what could be done. As the lady on the phone was useless and couldn't even figure out that I couldn't make a 1200 flight while being on the phone with her at 1100. Then she said I couldn't do anything about missing my flights to Helsinki and Kuopio because that was a different round trip booking than my London flight. It was an "OH DEAR!" moment.  Thank goodness for a lovely guy Jeff at BA as he sorted everything out and rebooked me on all new flights! So I was thankfully still on my way to WOC! 

Frankfort Airport deserted!

So I have now been on a flight to Frankfort. I however was now flying two different airlines so I couldn't get my bag checked all the way through :( So had to go through boarder control, wait for my bag, change terminals to find the finair check in desk and recheck my bag. This is when I found a pretty empty airport! And it stayed that way until about 10am (I arrived at 6am). Spent about 6hrs there. I was in line basically right as the check in desk opened, and checked bag all the way through and got tickets. Well that was fine but security was touch and go for a bit and I had gone straight there. Like seriously thought I was going to miss my flight after sitting in the airport for 5hrs already! LESSON LEARNED: just take out the kindle even when they say you don't need to as your bag will get searched but you will be stuck in a que behind newbie travelers that apparently don't know what a liquid is! like seriously people perfume, toothpaste, hand sanitizer, lip gloss, mouth wash, ALL liquids! But heyho I made it through and got to my gate in time, even managed to get a croissant for breakfast :) 

So managed to get to Helsinki and Kuopio with no problems. Met a lovely Fin in Helsinki and we had a nice chat about the Kuopio airport and flies and he even knew about WOC which was cool! I then got to Kuopio and ended up having to wait about 5.5hrs before Wyatt showed up to pick me up in a car (he had been driving up from Helsinki). So spent the time on the internet which was fine and reading my book. But the main issue was the airport was SOOOO small. It did have a cafe but it wasn't open, and the vending machines would only take coins which I didn't have yet only notes. There wasn't even really anyone around to get change from. So needless to say I was a very hungry Alison while on skype to colm worried as to where wyatt had gotten to. But it was all good I got picked up.


Wyatt and I then still had about a 2hr drive further north to Vuokatti to the cabin. This is where we found out that it REALLY doesn't get dark out. Like not even for a half an hour. You couldn't even really tell it was midnight when we were driving that we found it very funny to be saying "Happy 4th of July" to each other already. Decided that Fireworks would stink here as you wouldn't see them! Anyway after a stop to get me a burger for dinner, and then a little bit of navigating issues right at the end we finally arrived at the cabin 2am July 4th Finish time (+7hrs from philly). 


So I've basically had to orienteer my way to woc but hey great warm up right!?

On the road to WOC 2013!

This summers adventure started at least a year ago when I decided I was going to train to make the USA senior orienteering team to compete at the world championships. Hours of training, motivation and juggling course work was this year. Training more with the Scottish elite and daily runs with my friend Regina got me pretty prepared. I had some good runs back in October at the North American championships. And great runs at Easter in the big uk race the JK. Then the waiting started! I had put in a petition but had to wait until mid may for the USA team trials to take place. I was glued to the computer waiting for results that weekend. 

I honestly cannot fully describe the emotions I had when I read off my name when the team was announced! Relief all the hard work paid off, pride that I got to represent my county again, but probably most of all excitement! Excitement to make the jump to the senior level of the sport that I love! 

Then I'll be honest a bit off worry set in where I doubted my ability to compete at the high level I wanted to and exceptions I and others had for me. That's when a SEDs (Scottish elite development) training weekend came in. I got talk to to many previous woc runners including Linnea Gustofson who had won gold for the sprint! Her advice is what I'm holding on to strongly (with bits an pieces from others added on ;) ). Linnea told me that I shouldn't worry about others. That I had done my part, I made the team and it is now my competition to enjoy and learn from and just do the best I can and worry about my goals and no one else's expectations of me. That the best runs come from when you are focused and calm yourself and the rest comes. 

I'm excited to be racing the sprint at the 2013 world orienteering championships in Finland! 

So I'm on my way! Literally I'm sitting in the Helsinki airport! But the story of my actual trip here deserves another post. 

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!

WUOC 2012 - Opening Ceremony

Getting to represent the USA for the 5th time at a World Championship! This is my second WUOC and I'm looking forward to making the USA and Heriot-Watt Proud!

Us with one of the Swiss girls at the opening

 

 There are 5 of us on the WUOC team this year, Myself, John Hensley Williams, McKenzie Hudgins, Keith Andersen, and Charles Whitaker. The other four are from West Point, so I am the solo non-army representative just to keep some balance :p There has already been a lot of banter between us!

 

Yesterday was the Opening Ceremony to kick off the competition. We were lead to a public park not far from the hotel and lined up. We picked Keith to carry the flag since he is the eldest and is doing a great job at being both a competitor and our team leader. We were filled into an Open-air Theater to enjoy the welcoming speeches promises by the athletes and judges to abide by the rule, and a performance. The performance consisted of a dance routine with fire and ribbon dancers. At first I  found the performance a bit odd but once it started to build, it was actually quite cool! The only thing I didn't enjoy was sitting in the direct sun for the whole of it and having a hole in my tummy from not having dinner before. It was a late night because of that since we had to have dinner after the ceremony. 

Bring on the races! First up the Long!

Please don't forget about my Chip-in! Being a student means limited funds sadly :(

WUOC - Training

Now arrived in Alicante for the World University Orienteering Championships! The last two days the team has spent training and trying to stay cool (VERY HOT OUT!)

The first day we were lucky enough that the swiss had sorted transportation to a local event. The event was on the lower part of the middle map and so excellent training! It was over 6km long though so I decided to cut it shorter and just take it slow and get into the mapping style. Even doing that though I managed to run off the map into a parallel reentrant. OPS! The ground is also very rocky underfoot, so debating what shoes to wear. I ended up skipping 6 to 9 and then 10 to 15. Was getting hot and I had been out for a while anyway.

 

Map of the Local event.

Today we got up early and went to the model event. Again it was Middle/relay relevant, however I'm not fully sure it was. The controls were a bit easy after you sorted out the vegetation and the map seemed a lot more simplified than the one of the Middle/relay. However it was nice to get out and tested some routes so i know not to go straight now when there is a trail even if you have to drop down to the trail and then back up to the control. Also still VERY rocky underfoot! so slow going in some places. The rock features were distinct which is nice as i was a bit worried it was just going to be contours and green.

Model Map

On the social side of things :)

It was the Euro Cup final last night. Spain vs. Italy. Some of the team went into Alicante to watch it but I was tired and didn't want to get back late so stayed and watched it in canteen. However that meant we had both the Spanish and Italian team there watching. Not quite as much banter as we would have liked though. Still you could hear the fireworks after Spain had won from the hotel.

View from Hotel Window

Then after the model event today we all went 100m to the beach to go swimming :) The water was nice and blue and just the right temperature for an after run swim. It was very salty water though!


Tonight is the Opening Ceremony and then the Competition starts tomorrow with the Long Distance.

Please don't forget my Chip-In on the right hand side of this blog. Any help would be greatly appreciated and I hope to keep posting here through out the week so that everyone hears how am doing.

Running with 1200 others? - it's the Venla relay!

This last weekend I got the chance to run in one of the largest orienteering relays in the world! Venla is the women's relay run before Jukola. On a side note, I learnt the background story from my amazing host family the Raitanens. There is a finish story written in the 1800s about the 7 Jukola brothers which is why there are 7 legs and it's called Jukola. The Jukola brothers had a sister and her name was Venla.


I ran the first leg for DVOAs team. It was crazy at the start. You went in to the warm up area, got your emit brick cleared and checked and then the size of the event hit you. The warm up area was huge! there was a long wooden fence built for the map exchange and not signs of every 10 numbers like in the states if we had this but by the 100s! Then while warming up you noticed all the cameras placed around the arena. Video cameras on long arms to get right over the runners like at big sports events. But that's when I realized - this is a big sports event! This was going to be shown on tv in Finland and Sweden. I started to get a bit nervous then, my starting position was in the sixth row! 6 out of around 52!

We all got to the start line and the countdown (in two languages) began. At 1 minute to go we got our maps handed to us. At 30 seconds to go you heard hundreds of garmin watches being started "bleep bleep bleep". By 15 seconds to go you could really feel the energy of everyone wanting to go, like race horses in there box before a big race. Then... BAM the gun to start everything off. I was told it was loud and sounded like a cannon going off, on the start line the loud sound was ignored after the first hint of the sound, the focus had already turned to "get to the start triangle first". Which considering it was ~1km just to the start that would be a challenge. It seemed to go on forever! Felt like a cross-country race in a way. Tons of girls, elbows flying, everyone jostling for position and two nice hills. And the real race hadn't even begun! Here is a Link to Wyatt's Video of the start of the race

Leg 1 - My quickroute

By the start I had lost my 157th place but I wasn't worried. I was worried when I hit bare rock before my control though! Some how I had gotten pulled off my line and the sinking feeling of "I have no idea where I am" came. But there were LOADS of others just the same. People forming groups once they realized they were looking for the same control. You just hard "72? 72?" "31? 31?". Eventually after quite a bit of sweep searching and almost turning to go back to the start I found 72, my first control. I knew now it was going to be the hard task of keeping focused, pushing the first control out of my mind, and resisting the urge to just run to make up places.

The second control I over shot but was fairly quick to recover. But at that point I knew I had to push the race out of my mind and focus on the task of one control at a time or I would keep over running. The rest of the course went much better. Few bobbles, so far from a clean run, but respectable after my disaster of one. And for the first time ever it was not my speed or my navigation that was fully holding me back, it was the line of people going to each control! Now having the line there helped my confidence in navigation, so helped a lot. But found myself trying just as hard to pass people and move ahead. I apparently passes over 300 teams from 1 to the finish. Now one might be thinking "why run with so many people? What's the fun of that? There is no challenge of navigating" well I'm going to disagree. It was a new challenge of making sure you were picking the right line of people to follow, picking which trails where made by orienteers and which were on the map, and the main thing to not get panicky with so many people out there and just run your own race. Plus it was pretty cool to drop out of the woods and on to the bridge into the finish with so many people around.

I passed off to Sandy F who had a very clean run gaining us more places. Then it was Dasha's turn to go out of leg 3, who gained even more places and came back with a smile on her face. Then the stormer of a run came from Zan to land the team in 543 place. GO DVOA!!!

After having a great time racing Venla it was time to stay up all night to watch JUKOLA! CRAZY!!! So many lights.

Now the count down to WUOC! Off to Ireland to train before hand. Arriving in Spain on the 29th for the model events. Please don't forget about my ChipIn on the right hand side of this page. I want to thank everyone who has already supported me!