Team Canada arrived
(mostly) in the Czech Republic last Thursday to get in a little bit of
preparation before the first races on Sunday. I say mostly because there was
only two of us that were expected to arrive, and one of us most definitely did
not. For several days. In short, Emily got stuck in an airport.
With that crisis
eventually averted (though narrowly re-crisis’d when we discovered that the
hotel locks us in and I was unable to open the door for her at 2:30 in the
morning) we managed to get out to a model map for the long the day before the
sprint. If you haven’t run in the Czech Republic before, find your nearest
hill, run up it many, many times. And maybe jump through a little bit of
stinging nettle every now and then. That is a Czech orienteering simulation.
The forest is actually really lovely. Tall trees and basically no low branches
means the white forest is wide open, super runnable, and the visibility is
miles and miles, except for that giant hill in the way. Occasionally there are
also cool and fun rock/cliff features, though this terrain didn’t have as many
as further west and north in places like Novy Bor (see
“Czech out those rocks!”)
 |
| Alas, this is not our hotel. But it was the sprint final area. |
The first race up was the
sprint, which I (Will) was the only Canadian running. I was aware that my
fitness was not where I wanted it to be, and I seemed to have also picked up a
bit of a cold after pulling an all-nighter at Tiomila the weekend before (lesson learned). So, for me, the sprint qualification and subsequent B-final were just opportunities to create good habits and to work on running with
relaxed form. The sprint final was a particularly fun race, held on a hillside
spa, which meant big hills, many stair cases, a few switchback roads, and
ambiguously mapped flower gardens & shrubs!
The fun thing about
sprints on maps like these, though, is the difficulty in finding effective
route choices when legs go straight up or down the hill or when the legs go
across the hill. The ability to plan as much as possible with brief amounts of
downtime becomes super important, since you need to be able to both choose a
route quickly, but also choose the correct route! I… did not. Unless the best route included stinging
nettles. With short shorts.
In the long distance
qualification, we were met with the added challenge of having very hot weather,
hovering around 25 degrees. Perfect weather for standing around and watching
runners suffering in the heat. Personally I did not have a strong heat, as I was still feeling the cold and by 2/3rds
through the race, I hit a new level of tired that transcended just "race tired" and more into “I’d just like to lay down for a while”.
Fortunately, Emily was
more than capable to pick up the torch that I apparently forgot in quarantine
and run a strong qualifier, progressing into the A-final. In the long final,
thanks to her qualification position, Emily had the opportunity to be starting
in the midst of the top runners in the field. By the end of the long A-final,
with many racers slowly dropping off the pace, she ended up a remarkably strong
7th place. I asked her to provide her own report on how the race went:
I was feeling calm as
a cucumber before the race. I knew that I knew what to do (and that rhymes, too! – ed.), so it was simply a matter of going
out there and executing.
When I first picked up
the map I saw that the first few controls were quite short, which was good, but
it also meant I didn’t have as much time to plan the route to four, which was a
very long leg. Route choice is essential in this terrain because a wrong route
choice could mean climbing way more than is necessary. So, to be safe, I made
sure I left the control quite slowly to plan my entire route, which was a
worthwhile “investment” of my time. There were quite a few big trail running
sections as well, so I used that time to plan the rest of the course.
 |
| Emily melting faces. And just plain melting. It was hot. |
Physically, it was
difficult because of the nature of the terrain. It was quite rare to be doing
anything other than going steeply down or steeply up. So it either felt like
you were going “too slow” or “too fast”.
But, in spite of that, I was feeling pretty good. At around 2/3 through
the race I took a gel, but I didn’t really feel like I needed it (even though
in retrospect, I’m glad I did).
A quick look at the
results showed that a lot of runners were really falling off the pace in the
last 15 minutes of the race. Although physically I felt good, I could tell that
my concentration wasn’t as high because I wasn’t executing my plans the way
that I should have, and I was more trying to “fix” them as I was finding myself
in the wrong spot. But it just turned out that I could be flexible with my
route and still get to the control with minor time loss.
I’m quite happy with
this result, but there are still things I need to work on to get me to the
level I want to be!
----------------------------------
Next up for Team Canada is the Middle distance, which goes down tomorrow (Thursday, May 26). The starts are in the afternoon, and Emily will be wearing a GPS, so you can watch her dot at http://www.eoc2016.cz/en/ . You can simulate Will's dot by taking a lazer pointer and shining it against a wall in a random pattern.
Posts
