Monday, December 30, 2013

From 2013 to 2014


Hello everyone! I hope everyone is having a great holiday season. For those applying to the HPP hopefully you have finished or are close to finishing the application.

As the new year approaches, I find myself looking back at my orienteering for this year and hoping that 2014 will be much better. Since the beginning of the summer, I have barely done any orienteering. Just as I was settling into my schedule at University, a second wave of midterms prevented me from attending some of the weekly events GVOC has, and afterwards I really felt the need to focus on my studies. Luckily I did manage to attend a 3hr. Score-O at Lynn Valley, which I really enjoyed. I quite like the additional challenge of trying to maximize my points. I also liked the map, as I was able to pick areas that I felt would be better for me while I was getting used to orienteering again.



Although I'm disappointed by my lack of orienteering these past few months, I am reminded that one of the reasons I chose UBC was that I would be living in a city that had weekly orienteering events. Had I stayed in the Salmon Arm/Kamloops area, orienteering at this time of year would not be an option. Unfortunately, living in Vancouver means I don't get to ski as much, but the upside to that is my training is more orienteering specific, as I am running more.

With a new year and a new semester it is thankfully easy to focus on the positive. Now that I know what to expect from school (and have just moved a lab that would have conflicted with Wednesday events), I hope to attend more weekly orienteering events, and perhaps even the sprint camp.

Enjoy the new year!

Tøffen

I have been in Oslo since the end of November, as Thomas got a job here. There was some snow in the middle of December, but it melted and it has generally been slightly warmer than usual (albeit still icy). 

The Nipen family and I ran a long race after xmas, which is always run in the same area from the Larvik orienteering clubhouse. It has been put on for many years, however it is sometimes cancelled due to poor weather. Here is the map from 2003 that Olav showed us ahead of time (with his route). 
It was a mass start for all the courses at once (but the shorter courses had a different first control). All in all it lived up to its name, which means tough. The shorter course is called Tøffeln, which roughly translates to slipper. 
I tried out my new waterproof/breathable socks that I got for xmas. This is the 2nd time I used them, this time under my orienteering socks instead of over (which meant they stayed up better). I can say that they kept my feet dry for the first ~30 minutes, until water slowly seeped its way in (probably at least partly from going into water above the ankle - since they only come to my lower calf). However, I think they still kept my feet warmer, since new cold water did not cycle through as much.  

You can see my route below, along with annotations about where I made mistakes and what changes to my route would have been better. 
You can also see the top two men's routes: Øystein's route (1st), and Ander's route (2nd). Mathias's (3rd) and Thomas's (4th) routes are roughly some combination of these two, since it is mass start and there was some pack running ;).
Merry Christmas and a happy New Year!