DM Sprint...

Well... My dreams of winning outright didn't come true. I tried to replicate the preparation that I had for the JK sprint. I even wore the same socks. The start of my race went well. I was nearly tripped up on the way to the first. There was a control quite close on the same type of feature which was a little distracting. I managed to keep my head to the 4th control (I was leading here). Here there were other controls on nearby trees so after I punched I checked the code on my descriptions and saw it didn't match... It took me a little while to realise I had checked the 3rd code instead of the 4th. I think I let this little hesitation get under my skin. I only lost 4 seconds but I was running damn fast on the next leg and accidently missed the best route choice. I was still in a rush on the 7th. I went to the left because I saw the gap on the map. When I got there I could see no such gap. I wasn't calm enough to see that the green and the wall there were actually passable. I assumed it was olive green so I ran right around. To the 8th I can see from my GPS watch that I had totally lost my head. I ran full tit and then was about to jump some bushes but then stopped because it was olive green. Then I proceeded to run at 2min 30sec per km pace to the control. On the 9th I ran straight thinking there was a gap in the building, but nope. Then I ran back around the long way to the control. Now I could see Emil Folino Nielsen had caught me up 1min. Then and there I kind of lost motivation to push myself. I dawdled around the rest of the course having a few problems with closely placed controls. Emil never caught me right up, but Claus Bloch who had started 2min behind caught me at the 19th control. We both messed up the 2nd to last control (along with the entire elite field). I assume everyone had the same problem as me. I saw a control there when I was at my 12th control and figured it was my 20th. I'm glad I checked the code because our control was in the same place on the other side of the castle wall. I don't agree with this type of course planning. It seems in a lot of places the course planners were trying to trick the competitors into mis-punching. I pretty sure there are rules about how closely controls can be placed, especially when they are on the same feature. Of course you should check your control codes, but you shouldn't have to when you are punching a control in the middle of your control circle. If I had been running hard in the end I would probably be crying along with the rest* of the Danish elite team who had nearly all mis-punched.

*Christian Christensen, Rasmus Djurhuus, Rasmus Søes, Christian Nielsen, Mikkel Lund.

Tiomila

That was possibly the most nervous I have ever been before an orienteering race. My first ever Tiomila. Running first leg for Pan Århus. The minutes being counted down before the start felt like an eternity. Finally we had the call '15 seconds' then only 4 or 5 seconds later the gun went off. With one big 'BANG' I had 400 guys prematurely coming up my ass (in a totally hetrosexual way). The first kilometre was a blur to me, partially due to post traumatic stress but also from the intense speed. All I could hear were airhorns and people screaming. I just had to concentrate on not falling down and not getting stuck in the bottle neck of the start chute. (It's hard to put the 10mila start experience into words. This video from last years 10mila captures it pretty well - you have to skip through to about 10min though).

10 MILA- orienteering race
by Petzl-crew

 

The first leg was a nice long one. I chose to take the track all the way around to the right. I came into the first control at the front of my group. We had been fanging it the whole way. I was a couple of seconds behind a few guys who had gone a bit straighter. I finally started to relax as I thought I had got into a good position for the rest of the race. As we crossed the main road again I realised I was wrong. I was a little demoralised to see 30 or 40 odd runners infront of us. They had had a much shorter forking on the first. The next control was a mess for me. I think I just got caught up in they mayhem of so many people pushing throught the marsh that I forgot to read my map. I came to the wrong split. I stood there for half a minute trying to work out where I was. It was pretty hard with lights heading in every direction. I headed back to the stone wall that I didn't remember crossing and I clicked. I had lost 2 minutes atleast.

The rest of the course I was just running so fast trying to pass people when there was room. At the first radio control I had caught up to 109th place, just over 2mins behind the leaders. At the 4th radio after 10km I had crawled up to 39th place only 49sec behind the leaders. At night in the Swedish forest I had no idea how far I was behind. My only indicator was that it was becoming harder and harder to pass people. On the way to my 21st control I ran past the other split control (#50)  just as the lead group had come out of it. Unfortunately my next 2 forkings were long ones. I lost close to a minute on the 22nd control from route choice and then missing the control. I should've stayed left to avoid the marsh like I had planned, but I got dragged down there by some lights who had another split. The second to last control was a 1min nightmare aswell. I should've avoided the green stripes. It was extremely rough. I just got stuck behind some guys and we were all hardly moving. I passed a couple of guys in the finish to come in in 54th, 4min16sec down from first place.

I was a little disappointed with my run at first. But looking at it afterwards I realised it wasn't too bad. I had all of the longer forkings except for the second control, but I had decided to go to the longer one anyway!! I also made up alot of time on the leaders. I was 3rd fastest on my forkings. Minus my mistake at the second I would have been fastest. I think with my lack of experience in night orienteering, and in Swedish terrain, I can safely say it was a very good run.

Our team did quite well throughout the rest of the relay. Flemming Jørgensen ran well on second leg bringing our team up to 37th place. Rasmus Kragh bumped our team up to 31st place after running well on the 18km night leg with no forkings. It was a little bit downhill from there. We finished in 50th place in the end. First Danish team!! 2 places ahead of Spring Cup OK. Not as good as our 30th place last year. But top 50 is still really good :)

JK 2009

Blockhead

Last weekend Maja and I headed to the UK for the Jan Kjellström International Orienteering Festival. It was the first time I had been to the UK. It wasn't as bad as I expected. I think everytime I've seen Britain on TV it has been overcast, but the weather was great! Perhaps I've been watching too much Coronation street! It was a nice trip. We flew over Wednesday evening to Birmingham and drove to Sheffield. We stayed there with our good buddies Bryn and Piret. Thursday we went for a run in the Peak district, it seemed like a great training area. Friday morning we left Sheffield super early to travel up to Newcastle. It wasn't such a long trip, but we heard that the traffic could be really nasty at easter. We arrived about 6 hours before the sprint race... oops. On the up side we got to do some sightseeing. We saw a cool castle and I got to eat my first meat pie since I left NZ (steak and kidney). It wasn't the same :( The hours finally wore down and it was time for the sprint. I wasn't feeling super fresh before the start. I had been training pretty hard during the week. Once I started running I was fine though. I was really focused on the orienteering side of things. I wanted a good run as it was only 2 weeks untill DM sprint. I only lost a little time on the 13th and the 17th due to bad route choice. I made 1 mistake on the 25th where I was too busy figuring out the route choice for the next leg and ran right past the control. That was only 10 seconds though. I heard the commentators as I was running into the finish saying that I had won. I was stoked, and a little surprised. There were some fast guys in M21E that I would've thought I needed a perfect run to beat. Alright! My first gold of the season!

That evening I got to see my Dad and my little brother for the first time in  a year. They were in London on their way to the world schools championships in Spain and decided to drive several hours for 1 days competition and to see me!

Saturday was a world ranking middle distance race at Kyloe Hills. I felt ok warming up but as soon as I got into the terrain I felt really tired. I tried to push myself but had to walk a little uphill by only the 5th control! The terrain was really rough though, so I guess I had a little

The old man

bit of an excuse. It was really green and there were alot of fallen branches and thinnings everywhere. I made a small mistake on the 4th control. My biggest mistake was on the 7th. I thought the control was in a re-entrant. I went right by the control and ran down into a valley and saw the gigantic cliff and was totally confused. I lost over 2mins. I had seen Matt Crane pass me at that point so I pushed to catch him up and got really tired on the way to the 15th and sort of gave up on the chase. It turns out I passed him again when he mucked up the 9th control. At the 15th I saw Oli Johnson coming up behind me so I pushed through the last controls and got a little bit away from him. I got a 7th place. I was ok with that. I was aiming for top 10, but I think on another day I could have won.

Sunday (WRE long distance) wasn't the best. I think I was just too tired from pushing hard the last 2 days. I made alot of mistakes. I started to get cramps jumping downhill through the heather on the way to the 15th control. I got to the 19th control and was tempted to DNF. But I managed to cruise around the rest trying not to totally cramp up by having a couple of dirty waters at the drinks station. I was miles slower than the winners. I lost much more time from being slow than from mistakes so it was hard to compare. I got some pretty good splits after I had slowed down though, so I guess my navigation was still ok.

DM Nat

Well this post is a bit late, but oh well. The other weekend was Danish Night champs. It was my first proper night orienteering race. By proper I mean In a forest where you can see 5m as opposed to in NZ farmland where you can see forever. The course wasn't as tricky as I had expected. There was a hell of alot of track running. Technically my race was pretty good. I lost between 90sec-2mins on the first control from bad routechoice and then a little mistake near the control. I was just too happy to see another control on a vegetation boundry. I also had a bad route choice on the way to the 7th and the 17th. So I lost about 3mins in total from mistakes. I had had a very busy day organising a B grade event and started to feel it on about the 9th control so I had to slow down a bit for the second half of the course. I got some really bad cramps near the end of the course and had to walk a bit. Infact, I struggled to even walk in the open from 33-34.  I totally locked up going down the green hill to the last control and had a nasty fall. I got a pretty cool gash up the side of my leg, but it was quite annoying. I think I could've had a very good time. I was still pretty pleased with 5th place though :) I was pretty happy that I could navigate alright at night. It will help my confidence for Tiomila this weekend. 

Spring Cup

Saturday was my first big international race of the season. It was a very strong field in the elite class with a lot of top guys, 190 runners in total. Judging from the names in the start list I aimed for a top 25 placing so I was pretty satisfied with coming 25th!!! I made about 3-4 minutes mistakes throughout the course which means I could've been placed in the top 10. I was starting 1 minute behind Daniel Hubmann so I was praying he would make a big mistake in the beginning, but no such luck!  The first 2 controls were very vague and the vegetiation was quite hard for me to read. I lost about 90 seconds total in these 2 controls.  Looking at winsplits you can see that alot of runners had a much worse time in the beginning than I did. I was caught up at the 7th control by Jamie Stevenson and Scott Fraser (1min and 2min behind me). Mats Haldin was also running with them. He had started 4min infront of me but must have made some bad mistakes in the beginning. I thought atleast we can run fast in a pack for the rest of the course, but over the next 2 conrtols they completely monstered me! They were running much faster than I could handle! I had officially been dropped. I was quite annoyed and was quite slow through the next couple of controls whilst my body recovered from its unexpected beating. The rest of the cousre was ok, with only a few small mistakes here and there. I managed to catch Mats Haldin again at the 18th control and ran with him through the last few.

I was disappointed that I couldn't keep up with the speedy guys, but it was really fast terrain. I think at the moment I am more suited to steeper rougher terrain. I know I am running faster than last year, so my training is working. It should be just a matter of time and not getting injured untill I can keep up with the guns!

Nord Jysk 2 Dages

I have mixed feelings about my performance this weekend. Physically my runs were very good. However, my orienteering was shockingly bad. The first day was at Tornby. It was a bit green in some places and had some intricate sand dune areas. The map looked a bit like Woodhill in New Zealand, but in person it was a different monster. I found the map very hard to understand out on the beach. There was alot of detail, but nothing looked like I expected it to. My plan was to take it easy and make no mistakes (save myself for the next day). I lasted about 5 controls. I made a small mistake at the 5th, then I was off running like crazy again. I was with a couple of guys that I had caught up. We made small mistakes on some controls where I wasn't reading my map enough. Somehow on the way to the 14th control I had let myself drop a little bit behind. I glanced at the leg and thought this is easy enough, just run straight to the track in the green. So I bolted after the 2 guys infront of me not caring to read my map. We ended up going way to far left and we got stuck in some green and I suddenly realised none of us knew where we were.  After eventually relocating, we had lost about 3mins. Again, I start running like crazy. The next 2 controls were fine but then I navigated to the 10th control on the wayy to the 17th. I saw it was the wrong number so I checked the next depressions. Then I saw those guys passing me again, but I was sure the control was back further. Eventually I clicked, swore heavily, and again started running like crazy. I made some small mistakes on the rest of the course but it wasn't too bad. I lost 8mins all together, so I was very surprised to see that I was in 2nd place. I guess everyone had just managed to make more mistakes than me.
Sunday was at Uggerby. It was even worse than the day before. I was fine on the way to #1 until I hit the vegetation boundary just before the contol. It was very distinct so I thought I had somehow run all the way to the track (I should know better by now, It's happened countless times since I've been in DK). I mucked around for a little bit and then clicked. I didn't let it get to me and ran well through the next part of the course. I lost some time at the 12th where I missed the small track going into the conrtol. I guess I was just running too fast. I mucked up the 13th. It was much greener than I expected, but I thought I was right going into the control. I should've taken the main track to the left, it would have been much safer. My hugest mistake was on #17. I decided to run hard along the beach and come up at the track. I came up at what I thought was the track and then proceeded to search for the control in the comletely wrong area. I climed a hill to work out where I was then I still lost time in the control circle. About 4mins all up, Jeeez. There were only some small mistakes in the rest of the course. All up I lost about 10mins. I can't remember the last time I made that many mistakes!

So, I am happy with my new speed in the terrain, but I thing that is my problem. I have to consciously tell myself when I need to slow down going into the controls. Also to not be distracted by other runners. I will work very hard on these things at my race this weekend then hopefully I will be more confident for spring cup next week! :P

PS. Sorry about the maps. I kept forgetting to start my watch, and our scanner isn't working so they're just photos :S

Hallandsstafatten + Hallandspremiæren

I traveled with my club (Pan Århus) to Halland in the south of Sweden on the weekend. The idea was to get some good training in before Tiomila. On the Friday night we had a night race. My run wasn't very good. I made about 5mins of mistakes, mainly from not using my compass enough. I have to get used to night orienteering in forest. So far I've only really tried it in open farmland in NZ. It's much more difficult when the visibility is so low.
Saturday was Hallandspremiæren long distance race. I was using this race as training, trying to concentrate on my navigation. The terrain was really rough. There was a lot of fallen branches and thinnings everywhere. It was also really muddy, so it was very difficult to run. It seemed best to take the tracks, but there had been a lot of forest work going on, so some of the tracks had been turned into squishy mud pools by some big machines. I went well in the beginning of the course. My first real mistake came at the 5th control where I didn't read the control circle properly. I lost a little time on the way to 9 where I got a bit disorientated and fell in an icy pool of mud. Number 18 was my biggest mistake. I lost 2½mins coming into the control... I was using the green vegetation to my left which was a really bad idea :S All up I lost about 5mins, I was in 5th place. The winner Marcus Millegård must have run like a demon. He was 11min in front of 2nd place and 14mins in front of me.
Sunday was Hallandsstafetten (splits are from 1st and last leg runners - 8.5km - with the same forking). It was snowing. I ran first leg as practice for Tiomila. I was with the leaders until the 10th control where I got confused by all the forest work tracks that weren't on the map. I wondered at the time why I was the only one heading in a different direction (usually a sign that something is wrong). I lost about 90sec but I ran hard and caught up to a group about 1min behind the 2 leaders. I totally lost my mind on the long route choice leg to #15. I wanted to run just around the left of the quarry, but for some reason I decided to run way up a massive hill through some green. The rest of the course was ok. I pulled out a big 330m finish sprint and came in in 9th place, about 2mins behind the leaders, then threw up everywhere. I had to quickly get to the showers before I got hypothermia!
It was a good weekend. I definitelty think I can run fast enough to keep up in Tiomila. The terrain there should be a bit more open than at Halland so it should suit me.