JWOC Sprint Report & Long Preview

The opening race for JWOC 2012 was the sprint, which snaked through the streets of Kosice! Tove Alexandersson of Sweden dominated the women's race, and Gleb Tikhonov of Russia claimed gold in the men's race.

Emily Ross concentrating hard!

 Team Canada seemed pretty happy with their performance. Here's what Trevor and Kendra had to say about their races today, and their thoughts for tomorrow:


Trevor: I was excited and a little nervous for my first JWOC start. I had done visualization about the start, so I knew what to expect. The start demonstration yesterday helped as well. The quarantine area was interesting. Some people were listening to music, some reading, and some talking.

The course had lots of alleyways, and you had to count where to turn. There were a few dead end traps. The course was a lot longer than sprints at home so I had to pace myself. I was careful not to make mistakes on the first few controls. I did a couple of minor mistakes; missing an alley and having to go back but nothing major. The alleys looked like regular doorways so they were hard to see when running at high speed. It was weird to have so many people on the streets watching us. In some places officials waved people to the side when we came running.  I am a bit nervous for the long tomorrow. I have never run a race in that differnt karst terrain. The 3 trainings we had in this terrain will help but the terrain is so different from anythign I have been on before. I am gong to have to pace myself for the first few controls to get into the map and get some flow.

Trevor Bray with his splits!

Kendra:  "I felt good and was happy with the race, and it went better than expected. A small mistake in the beginning but avoided anything major. I had some help from a Norwegian girl in keeping the speed up. The course was not as technical as it could have been. There were no difficult traps, but it was still challenging at the high speed. There were lots of pedestrians watching but the organizers had people holding them back in the critical areas so there was clear running. I will try to recharge for the long with rest and hydration. I need to do some stretching tonight. I am hoping for a clean race tomorrow too.

Kendra chasing down a Norwegian!

You can view the men and women's courses on Routegadget. Do a little route choice exercise - which route would you take? Compare with the top JWOC runners!

In terms of placing, Alex Bergstrom came in 156th and Trevor Bray finished in 161st. Check out the full results and splits. 

Alex looking fast and confident!

For the women, Kendra had a great race, finishing just under 3 minutes behind the winner to take 65th place. Kerstin was 111th, and Molly 114th, and Emily Ross was 119th out of 134 runners. Emily Kemp decided to sit out the sprint to save herself for the middle and long distances, as she is recovering from tendonitis in her knee. You can view the full women's results and splits here. 

Go Molly Go!

Tomorrow (Monday) is the long distance race. There is no qualification race for the long, and each country can enter up to 6 runners in each race, and each runner must start 2 minutes apart, hence the crazy long start window (about 6 hours!). Start times for Team Canada (in Slovakia time) are:

Trevor Bray (10:23)
Alex Bergstrom (11:37)
Emily Ross (10:16)
Kendra Murray (10:52)
Kerstin Burnett (11:20)
Emily Kemp (13:12)
Molly Kemp (13:24)

The terrain is described as karst terrain with depressions. On the slopes of the depressions are rocky fields and cliffs with heights from 1-3m. There are several abysses and rocky pits origination from erosion, and small, ground level terraces that are the remains of charcoal production! The vegetation is 3 distinct types ~ first is mostly deciduous forest, second is semi-open or open areas with varying runnability and visibility, and the third area is very dense vegetation. The men's course is 11.5km, with 405m of climb, and 23 control points. The women's course is 7.7km, with 280m of climb, and 13 control points.

Hopefully the long model training last week will help our team to a confident performance! Tune in tomorrow for the race report! GO CANADA GO!