Mega Blog!

Well well well, it's been a while since I wrote anything on here. I guess I've been a bit distracted. I suppose I should give a bit of an update for my religious followers ;) A lot has changed for me since my last post over a year ago. I'll try and give some bullet points rather than a huge diatribe about my recent happenings so that you can stay awake throughout:

- In late 2009 I applied for a visa to continue living in Denmark which was unfortunately denied.

- We appealed the decision.

- Denied.

- Having no qualifications didn't help my cause so I decided to go back to NZ to sort my life out.

- Unfortunately Maja was only in her first year of study so she had to stay behind in Odense, so now we're another Skype couple (which isn't as fun as it sounds!).

- Since I was back in NZ for the lovely summer I became a bigger part of my little brothers brain-child 'Sprint the Bay'. Originally I was just going to be a long distance course setter (not for a long distance, from a long distance), but after being kicked out of Denmark I became sort of a co-president of the event. It involved 3 days with 6 sprint orienteering races. We decided to have a yellow jersey (well yellow singlet really) for the over-all leader and also a green jersey for dedicated sprint legs in each of the races. This made things extremely competitive in the elite races. I was able to compete in the races I wasn't mapping or setting, and with Martin Hubmann in NZ for the summer I had some really good competition. Check out the results and courses from last year on our new website. Also a there's a cool video from the first stage here:

- The rest of the summer was filled with some trainings that I organised for our local club (see maps etc. here) and working on a vineyard.

- Time to study. This time around I decided to go with Computer and Information Science at AUT university in Auckland. I had a look at various courses, and this seemed the most interesting to me, and there's also a huge variety of job types available when I come out the other end with my little scroll.

- I've never lived in Auckland before this year, but I enjoy it much more than I thought I would. There's a lot of guys up here who are really motivated to train for orienteering, mostly juniors, so I was able to get motivated to train on those days where you'd rather build a cardboard box fort in your living room and eat food containing preservatives that you can't even pronounce.

- After starting up regular interval sessions twice a week, I started to see a lot of potential in our juniors. This was one of the reasons I decided to put my self forward for the JWOC coach for 2010.

- At the Easter weekend I had an average National champs. I made a mess of the sprint race, however I was happy to win the middle distance after a really bad start (see the route gadget for sprint middle and long, and the results for sprint middle and long).

- By the time we were ready to embark for our trip to Europe, the junior guys were beating me half the time in orienteering, even though I had massively improved my 5km time to 15.30.

- JWOC 2010 was in Denmark (one of my other incentives for coaching the team) - check out the team blog here. The terrain was not too dissimilar from areas around Auckland but the vegetation was very limiting in a lot of places which I think was the main challenge for our juniors. As always, NZ draws the short straw with JWOC being on the other side of the world. We don't have the luxury of regular training camps throughout the year on relative terrain. Making a JWOC A final become very difficult with only 2 weeks of relative training, but with 2 of our guys and one girl making the A final I was very happy. The relays went really well with our teams getting NZ's second best ever placings in both the guys and the girls races (both 12th). A lot of the team were disappointed with their results, but the experience was a good one and now they know what is required of them to do really well on the international stage. Now they have the memories and the motivation to train extra hard for the coming years.

- After JWOC I had a week to gather my energy before the world university champs in Borlänge, Sweden. The plan was to due some high quality training (intervals/intense o-sessions) but with less volume than usual. But either I was a bit shagged from the JWOC week or I am allergic to pancakes, because my body had other ideas. On the Tuesday I woke up with an extremely sore stomach which only seemed to get worse and worse. After spending nearly a day in the hospital being mucked around they suddenly decided I had an appendicitis and I needed to have my appendix removed, but of course by the time they got around to doing it it had already burst.

This would make my recovery take weeks instead of days.

After a week in hospital I wasn't feeling too good. Not just from the pain in my stomach, but from the week I was supposed to spend with my girlfriend being taken away along with my best ever chances at WOC. I decided to travel to Borlänge anyway, because Maja was in the team. It was a bit depressing not to be running but it was really fun to support the kiwis and see Angela come an awesome 6th place in the sprint! And of course the party was a highlight.

- After having my guts ripped out 3 weeks before the world champs I was thinking of taking a holiday instead, but since Trondheim was promised to be some awesome terrain I decided that I would still be able to have some fun competing. I ran in the sprint qual, not expecting too much of myself. I felt horrible. I didn't really make mistakes, maybe some bad route choices. But I didn't really feel like myself. It was just so hard to think and to run compared to normal (see the map and results). To my great surprise I made the final! I was happy at first but then realised this meant I had to run again later in the day. After running a ridiculously long way to the start point, I was already tired for the start of my race. Things went badly from the word go. I messed up the first control by deciding on my route-choice from memory of the old maps then realising that they had put a up a temporary impassable fence for the race. When I got up to the castle I was physically exhausted and stopped reading my map, I was just running around trying to find a way out of the fort and nearly succeeded with running right off the edge. This seemed to be my biggest challenge for the entire WOC. All of my mistakes were after climbing a hill and my brain just seemed to dissolve. Later in the course I made a huge mistake where I didn't know what was happening. I thought I had run into an out of bounds area because I was suddenly on a gravel road when my map was telling me it was supposed to be paved. I then proceeded to flounder around few a few minutes while everyone passed me, i.e. I came dead last in the race! (See the GPS tracking and results) The next race was the middle qual. This was my most enjoyable race from WOC, it was quite physical, but I took it easy after having learnt my lesson in the sprint. It paid off because a lot of people made a lot of mistakes in a lot of places. I qualified in 9th place which I couldn't quite believe given my recent misfortune (see the map and results). Next up was the middle final. This course was boring and weird. It was too fast for me with the physical shape I was in at that time and naturally I pushed too hard and made huge mistakes, like on the way to the 4th control (see the GPS tracking and results). The relay went ok for me, I was happy to be able to run the whole way (except for the huge ass climb after the spectator run through), I made some bad route choices in the race but no really big mistakes (see GPS tracking and results).

- After the Europe tour I had a lot of study to catch up on after missing 7 weeks of class. I never really did catch up but I managed to pass my exams (I think). I won a world ranking event at labour weekend, the course was a bit unfair with dodgy controls but I pushed hard enough to puke so I must have run all right (see route gadget and results).

- Now that university has finished for the year I'll head back to Hawkes Bay for a nice summer of training!

Recent Happenings (incl. Blodslitet)

Hey hey!
I haven't been up to too much lately, not exactly by choice either. I had a small rest after WOC and then decided to run a half marathon. It didn't go too well, I felt really sick and ended up puking at about the half way point. I managed to finish the race in a pretty lazy time (77.01 - I was hoping to do below 73min). The next day I could hardly walk!! Apparently I had tried to squeeze too much life out of my racing flats. They had worn a bit thin at the front and had become compressed, so I had nearly no cushioning in my forefoot.
I tried to train after a couple of days rest when it didn't hurt to walk any more but soon realised that I was far from healed! My injury put me out for 2 weeks. I did manage some light jogging but just returned home as soon as it began to hurt.
I managed to make good use of my down-time. I organised some cool club trainings around Odense (I am now one of the 4 senior coaches, including Maja and 2 others).
After easing back into training for a week I headed to Fredrikstad in Norway with Maja and her parents for a short holiday. We did a training near Halden on the way up, and another couple of trainings around Fredrikstad. The trainings all went really well except for 2 controls on each where I made huge mistakes :P
There was an ulterior motive deciding our holiday destination. We were going to run Blodslitet. I wasn't sure if it was a good idea after my recent injury, but I really just wanted to see if I could last the whole race.
For those of you who don't know, Blodslitet (est. 1968) is a mass start race consisting of 3 loops with forkings and a longer common final loop. Oh... and it's long. Really long (not to mention in tricky nordic terrain aswell!).
The elite mens race this year was 26.2km. I started off quite well, but then made a 3 minute mistake near the end of the second loop. After that I was mostly on my own. I was quite happy to make it as far as I did before the inevitable cramping started (between 6-7 on the last loop) and I even managed to finish without completely locking up :)
It was very satisfying to finish the race, and with no trouble from my foot! :) After two hours, fifty-six minutes and thirty-one seconds I ended up in 23rd place, 27:31 behind the winner Øystein Kvaal Østerbø.
You can see the maps below :P

Træningslejr i Trondheim

Last week, with support from my club Odense OK and the crush Åke Jönsson has on me, I was able to tag along with the Danish team on their training camp in Trondheim.
The purpose of the camp was to prepare for WOC next year. It was my first time in Trondheim, and it definitely showed :) My orienteering was ok for the most part, but then occasionally went totally out the window.
I went over a day earlier than the Danes. I stayed with Chris and Emily in their cozy little apartment right near an awesome forest. Chris and I went for a jog on his map the evening I arrived and I went again early the next morning.
The next few days were pretty busy, just eat train eat train eat sleep etc... I managed to twist my ankle whilst falling off a cliff on the first training with the Danes. But I managed to run the next day so it can't have been that bad :P
On the weekend we ran a long distance race and a relay in Selbu. The long started well, but then I made a really dumb route choice on the 4th control. Then by about the 8th control I was totally stuffed and starting to cramp again, probably from my lack of training in steep rough terrain. So the rest of the course was just a bit of a mission, watching fast guys run past :P
For the relay I ran for a local club, Byåsen Idrettslag. Unfortunately for them I had probably my worst run in 15 years or so. I ran first leg. I wasn't focused at all and muffed the first and second controls. Then I was all alone. I decided to try and catch up but then lost about 17mins on the 6th control! I duno what happened. Maybe I bumped my head or something. I tried to relocate off a rock a few times but just never went close to the control. I think I was last in on the first leg :S
We had a few more trainings before heading home. The trainings are here:

Woc-analysis in a nutshell

I made mistakes, I was stupid, I didn't enjoy the sports. And now I'm free. A longer version is available in Finnish.

With a smile, Minna Ross

Though I must add, it was pretty nice having the chance to watch Chris kicking some ass for NZ!!!

Time Warp

It's now close to a month since I left Denmark for the 2009 World Games in Kaohsiung, Taiwan. I have no idea what happened to these last 3 weeks. I am in the middle of packing my bags for WOC in Hungary and I realised I better smack something down on my blog about WG before my short memory gets the best of me!
I met the rest of the NZ team (Darren Ashmore, Tania Larsen (ex. Tania Robinson) and Lizzie Ingham) in Hong Kong a few days early. The idea was to get used to the heat and the humidity and do a few technical trainings on the local parks.
It was my first time in any Asian country so it was quite a culture shock for me. The population density was crazy. Families packed into the tiniest of apartments. I really enjoyed my self though. Just the task of finding our way to training each day was an exiting adventure. Even when Tania was mucking around and caused us to get separated from the others in the subway, I still couldn't find anything to complain about :P
Next we moved onto Taiwan. I could write forever on the next few days, but I'll try and keep it brief. We all managed to get accredited without any hiccups, then shunted off to our hotel. We had to take buses for a minimum of 20min each way to get our dinner and lunches. I must say however, it was definitely worth the trip. A nice big buffet of anything an athlete could want. Plus a chance to gawk at the body builders and some of the other sports teams.
The model event, for sprint, middle and relay, was on a very small central park. We were able to jog there from the hotel. It seemed a little cooler than in Hong Kong, but still like running in a sauna. The map seemed to be pretty good. Darren and I jogged around most of the controls to have a chat about it, but mostly just to look cool and psych out all the other teams.
That night was probably the best part of the trip. The opening ceremony! Having to leave the hotel at 4.30pm and be mostly on our feet until 11pm the day before the sprint was a compromise worth making. We didn't get to see all of the acts in the beginning of the ceremony, but walking into the stadium with 40000 screaming people was something I might only have the chance of doing once in this life. We even managed to get on TV just after Hayley Westernra finished singing Pokarekare Ana. We were also privileged to inhale the smoke from a pretty impressive fireworks display.
The next morning it was time to put our serious hats on. I have a lot of problems with the heat in the past. So instead of trying to sneak a peak at all the girls running their sprint I chose to sit in the airconditioned tent and feed ice to my scrotum. My race went pretty well. I wasn't quite as in control as I would have like to have been. I lost 5 seconds or so on the 2nd, 7th and 8th controls, and about 20 seconds on the 5th. After about the 13th control I could feel myself starting to slow up. The heat was killing me. It was a real battle, but I really pushed myself to try and keep a reasonable tempo until the finish. This paid off big time. I was in the lead at the time I finished. I could see all the top guys were also feeling the burn coming through the spectator control. I only had to watch 9 guys come in to beat my time. I ended up in 10th place. My best placing (so far) in a world level event. That combined with having a nice cold coke in one hand is one of the best feelings :) I have to say though, I think I can fully attribute my new performance level to all the new Dirty D O-gear we got. By far the most comfortable and cool looking o-gear around at the moment! xox
Next morning was the middle distance. The event was on a 1:5000 sprint map, but with middle distance rules. That meant we could go through everything except olive green. My race wasn't as good as the day before. I made mistakes on #'s 3,7,9,10,11 and 13. So after a bad start I made up a few places to end up in 18th place. Still a great result for me!
The relay was without a doubt my best run. I ran the first leg and started out hard. Unfortunately I had the longer forkings throughout the course. I finished in 9th place but only 1min 29sec behind the Russian leaders. With only one mistake (nearly going the wrong way around the last loop - I realised at the radio control) I was very satisfied with my run and was able to sit down, relax, enjoy a big fat Taiwanese beer and watch the rest of the relay. Our team did really well, despite having 2 old fogies. We finished in 11th place only 11mins down on the winners. A great result for NZ!!!
The closing ceremony wasn't as spectacular as the opening one. It was a delightful evening spent partying in a secluded bar with the Brits and the Aussies whilst hustling drinks off a chubby little Taiwanese lady named 'big mama'.
On the way home I stopped by oringen to see my little sister Kate. I managed a couple of jet lagged races on the open 9 course. It was nice to run in a real forest again :)
Now I guess I better get back to packing!
Ciao!

Vestjysk 2-dages

Whilst all the fast guys were strutting their stuff at the world cup races in Norway, I had a nice weekend with great weather in west Jylland :) The 2-day event was held on an inland dunes map near Holstebro. It was quite tough running. There is a lot of heather to push through and the ground is very sandy. So naturally I felt a bit tired, but I'm sure it was the same for everyone :)
The first day wasn't the greatest run for me. I made a few small mistakes and one huge 7minute mistake on the 17th control. I found it quite hard to make sense of the vegetation and contours.. I nearly went to the control in the beginning but came across some depression with no control there and I couldn't see any others on the map so I went on a small adventure. I came back from a different direction about 6mins later and found it straight away :) I came in 3rd place 1min 43sec behind and a little disappointed. I think that in a more important race with a bit higher conventration things might have gone a little differently, but who knows!
The second day was a little better. I made a lot of small mistakes around the controls but nothing too huge. My biggest mistake would have been the 17th where I didn't check my compass too well and ran too much to the right, then made a mistake near the control as well. It was a really hot day, especially with no protection out in open. I found myself dreaming about every drinks control. But it was all worth it to get to the finish and have a nice cold coke, and to win.
The results for both days are here (I ran 'Sort 10km'). The link for results on the second day doesn't seem to be working :S but maybe it will soon :)

Dansk Park Tour 4

Yep yep. Last weekend was the last round of the Danish Park Tour races. I ran the first race really well. I maintained a high speed through the whole course (after a tough week of training with 3 interval sessions I didn't know any different!).
It's a bit boring (and arrogant) to talk about all the good things I did. So I will now, as usual, sytematically list my mistakes and shortcomings :)
I made a couple of bad route choices on the 3rd and 4th controls. I also made a mistake early on the way to the 11th where the purple line obscured an impassable wall. I lost 30 seconds maximum from these mistakes but still managed a convincing win.
I realised in the next hour or so whilst trying to recover that perhaps I had pushed a bit too hard in the first race. I felt fatigued from the beginning of the 2nd race. I tried to put it in the back of my mind and concentrate on the navigation, but as it turned out my mind had also not fully recovered :) My first mistake was on the 4th where I took a risk that I would be able to find a nice hole in the green to bash through before the control, but I just kept getting stuck and had to go around. I lost 5-10 seconds standing in the middle of the control circle at the 5th before I saw the control stuffed down in a ditch instead of on the vegetation corner. On the 10th control I made the coolest mistake I have made in a long time... I went straight, only reading the buildings on my map (lazy tired mind) and came across an impassable hedge. Instead of looking at my map and minimizing my mistake I just thought 'oh, I'll just run around it. So unluckily I chose to run right and then ended up going backwards and then did the exact same thing one more time before the map spat me out again back at the 9th control :)
I lost some time on the 11th because I didn't see the track coming into the control from the left, and also some time at the 12th where I just ran past the control looking for a bush instead of a tree. I managed to get my mind together for the last few and finish well, but still only managed a 4th place.
Luckily my big win in the morning was just enough for me to win the day overall, and as it turns out the whole park series :) I just hope, well, I plan to pull out a sprint like the morning at the World Games in a few weeks.