Orienteering, for the Win?

Here I am sitting in my apartment, after a 12hr shift at the hospital with another tomorrow and then a night after that, trying to put into words the idea I have had for a while about my blog post. Therefore, I apologize in advance as my writing tends to deteriorate near the end of a long day.  Probably not helping is that the type of writing I have been doing in the last little bit has been nursing charting, which is mostly comprised of short, to the point sentences. BUT let’s not get caught up in that and move away from Foley catheters and dressing changes to things like orienteering, running and training!

This year (well the winter season after JWOC) I have tried to keep my training hours up, to keep in shape, knowing I would have to dedicate this summer to nursing school and not gallivanting around the country/world chasing orienteering flags. I was, I would say… semi successful in this. This spring a group of kids from the university outdoor club signed up for a half marathon together. Now, being young and stupid most of us didn’t do very much (if any) specific training for it, but still expected respectable times. Come race day I had been running 3-4 times a week regularly, among other things and had done two 20km ish runs the weekends leading up. All of which seemed to be too much for my knees. After consulting with a physio (who’s main recommendation was to do more cross training) I bought some knee braces and that seemed to help, a bit.

So I start the race. I get to Km 10 around the 1 hour mark thinking ‘ok this isn’t that bad, I can do this, just pick up the pace Tori’. Then I get to kilometer 14. I am not staying on my pace and I want to die. My knees hurt, my legs hurt… I hurt and I am now thinking ‘ why am I doing this? This sucks’. At around kilometer 17 I start bargaining with myself ‘Ok Tori if you finish this and get a decent time I will never make you race this again’. The last three kilometers go on forever, then I see the finish, then we proceed to run all the way around the building instead of going straight (which was torture for me incase you didn’t figure that one out : ) ). Then I am done. Yey? I can’t even tell if I am happy, I am just so relieved I can stop running.

I was a lot slower than what I would like to be (mostly because the time my mother got when she was mid fifties was a lot faster than mine, which is borderline depressing) but I was under 2hours…barely BUT I hear a couple mins is enough to be considered under. Overall it wasn’t the best time and needless to say I have not signed up for another pounding, endless road slog in the near future : ).

Although, couple weekends later I did get the opportunity to go to Washington with the Rennie’s (and rather large part of GVOC) for the US interscholastic champs. Let me just lay some ground work for those of you who haven’t talked to anyone that went to this event. It was on the west coast. By that I mean west coast forest and by THAT I mean the ENTIRE map was some shade of green. I know some west coasters will scoff but for this prairie Albertan girl it was pretty crazy foliage.

The first day the women’s course was 6ish km. It took me just under two hours to run, climb, crawl and/or fight my way through the forest. While I was on my hands and knees crawling through a bush (this is literally what I was doing, no metaphor here!) I couldn’t help and think that this was equivalent to my km 15 in my half and I almost laughed. This was so much MORE FUN! Why would anyone choose running on a road over THIS!? I get to run (ok, it was more like move…) as fast as I can through impossible woods, I get to think and part of my race depends on my thinking. I realized after my half marathon that maybe long distance racing isn’t for me, but as I was sprinting for the finish control, after fighting through the bush for two hours, I was thinking about how I want to be able to keep doing this, and for a long time! So to borrow the phrase from the weekend: Orienteering, for the win!

2012 Rising Star Award Winners Announced!

The Canadian Orienteering Federation’s (COF’s) High Performance Committee (HPC) is pleased to announce the 2012 Rising Star Award recipients. The Rising Star Award is an annual award designed to support Canada’s most promising young orienteers in their quest for top international results. The nominees are assessed on past results, future potential, and contribution to the orienteering community, as well as financial need.

Our female recipient this year is Louise Oram of Vancouver, BC. Louise started orienteering at the age of 12, and has been one of Canada’s top female orienteers ever since. A key member of the Greater Vancouver Orienteering Club, Louise organized the BC Orienteering Championships in 2009, and took on the role of course planner for the Western Canadian Orienteering Championships in 2010. Louise is committed to the development of orienteering in Canada, having planned and assisted at local and national training camps for children and adults. Louise is currently the Canadian Champion in the Middle and Long distances. Her solid run for the women’s relay team at the 2011 World Orienteering Championships assisted in the teams outstanding 12th place finish.

The male rising star for 2012 is Eric Kemp from Ottawa, ON. Eric is certainly a rising star on the Canadian orienteering scene. His race results have improved consistently, cumulating in a number of top 3 place finishes in North American races in 2011, highlighted by 2nd place in the long distance at the US Individual Championships, and 3rd place in the middle distance at the Western Canadian Orienteering Championships. Eric is highly involved with the Ottawa Orienteering Club. He has organized many training and race events, and is currently developing a local junior training program. Eric is a member of the High Performance Committee (HPC), and organized a key fundraising event for the HPC in 2012.

On hearing the announcement, Eric said “I am sincerely grateful to receive this award. A huge thank you to the many folks across Canada who have helped me pursue this great sport! May my actions speak louder than my words.” Louise was also thankful, saying “I’m grateful for the support. I’m still training hard, and believe my best results are still ahead of me.”

Former national team members and long time orienteering volunteers Kitty Jones from Calgary, Brent Langbakk from Whitehorse and Hans Fransson from Hamilton were the selection committee members.

You can follow Louise and Eric as they compete in the 2012 orienteering season on Louise's athlete profile, Eric's athlete profile, on Facebook, and on Twitter.

Announcing the World University Orienteering Championship Team!

The COF’s High Performance Committee (HPC) is excited to announce the Canadian 2012 World University Orienteering Championship (WUOC) team!

Held every 2 years, WUOC is a great opportunity for up and coming orienteers to experience a competitive environment while racing against some of the best orienteers in the world! The HPC is encouraging Canadian orienteers who are also university students to attend WUOC as an excellent training opportunity for the World Orienteering Championships (WOC).

Canada will be represented by Damian Konotopetz, Eric Kemp, Jeff Teutsch, Robbie Anderson, Will Critchley, and Louise Oram. This year Pam James, former national team athlete, will head the team as the coach and team leader . WUOC is being held in Alicante, Spain from July 2-6^th.

WUOC is organized by FISU (International University Sports Federation). Canadian Interuniversity Sport (CIS) works with the COF to coordinate Canada’s involvement in the championships.

You can follow the team and show your support on this blog, on Facebook, and on Twitter. 

Alison Price

High Performance Committee

Communications Assistant

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www.orienteering.ca

Talent + Dedication + Support → Performance + Growth  

Spring Showdown in Georgia!

This year the American Team Trials were held in conjunction with the US Individual Championships down in Carrollton, Georgia. I and fellow HPP athlete Alex Bergstrom made a special trip South for the occasion.

The first big A-meet of the year is always interesting because nobody yet knows who's who after the winter. Also, the terrain was a bit of a mystery since the maps were entirely new and the 14km Blue course supposedly had only 120m of climb when the model map looked like this:

The weekend started off with an urban sprint on the University of West Georgia Campus. The course was reasonably technical with a few interesting long legs towards the end. You can see Alex's killer instinct surfacing as he runs through the spectator control:

Next was the mystery Long. As it turns out much of the course traversed the flood plane of the river which was pretty flat. Even then I ended up climbing 270m, more then twice the advertised amount. Admittedly some of my route choices weren't quite optimal but nothing significant. It was a fun course with a few technical challenges, particularly the occasional expanse of featureless woods to test your compass bearing.

Finally on Sunday we ran the Middle. This was the race I was most looking forward to. Having run ~16km quite hard the day before I knew I would feel more tired then usual but also that everyone else was in the same boat. What I wasn't prepared for was the prickly nature of the forest. Spear grass, cacti and hard to see, unforgivingly spiky vines that don't break when you unsuspectingly dive into them, made running fast and focusing on the course a constant challenge.

In the end the race went well for both Alex and I. The RouteGadget for the Blue course is a real nail biter. Select all the runners then watch as the top five of us finish within a single minute!

Here's me coming through the spectator control with just a short loop to go. Alex isn't the only one with a killer instinct.

Photo Credits to Stefan Bergstrom.

JK 2012

So for Easter weekend I was racing around Pitlochry Scotland. It was a 4 day event. The first day was in Livingston for a sprint. The next day was a long for me on Dunalastair map. The third day was on Craig-a-Barns map and that was a middle. The last day was a relay event on the Newtyle map. Most of the terrain over the 4 days is the same. Wet, lots of rolling hills and rocks!

The first day was alright. We drove all the way up from Durham, England to Livingston, Scotland. I was run in W20E. I didn't make any mistakes I just took it slow because for me messing up or getting lost on a sprint is a very bad Idea. There was lots of underpasses and little alleyways that could easily be missed. You needed to know the direction you were leaving the control. You also had to really read ahead and have a route planned because there were a lot of traps.

The next day on my long it didn't go so well. I took way to long trying to find my first control because I thought the scale was 1:7,500 and it was actually 1:15,000. Once I got that sorted it was okay for the next control. Going to number 4 was not good I thought about going one way but decided to go the other way around because I didn't want to go through all the green. I got really lost and kept think oh it is the next knoll. I finally bailed relocated and found it right away. The last third of the course was in a big field and it was really hard to go fast and not sprain your ankles or smash your knees on rocks. I need up smashing my knee on a rock. I finished the race but it was not one of my better ones.

The third day at Craig-a-Barns was great, I was happy with my race. To get to the start was a real warm up. It was about 1.5km to the start and the last 300m was really up hill. By the third day my legs were starting to hurt. I only made one mistake on this race otherwise it was good. There was lots of detail so it was easy to read as you ran.  I felt like I could orienteer on this map and actually have a route, attack point and a handrail if I wanted.

The fourth and final day was a relay. It was on Newtyle hill map. My leg was really easy. I just couldn't run up hills. I would try and my legs would say I don't think so. My first control was up a big hill and it was hard on my legs to run up a hill on only the first control. That was the only really big climb. the rest would be just 1-3 contour lines. This map was fun. I would have love to run a more technical leg.

Their banquet dinners are a Ceilidh. It was so much fun to dance with tons of different orienteers. I learned a lot of different dance.

This was the sprint map

My Long at on the Dunalastair map

Middle on Craig-a-Barns

 My leg for the relay on Newtyle map

I finished my Long!

Finish at Craig-a-Barns

One of the mass start for the relay

The Jk was a really fun event and I got to run against the people who are trying for JWOC and WOC. My next event is the BOC long in the lake distract were I am running W20E. 7km here I come!

Racing Report: Flying Pig

I refrained from writing anything in the aftermath of the US Classic Championships in March since that early in the spring (technically, still winter) the Canadian contingent consisted of no one other than myself (to be clear, "myself" = Jon Torrance, not the pictured Serghei Logvin, as photographed shortly after finishing the third race of the Flying Pig weekend), Gord Hunter and the ubiquitous Alex Kerr. At Flying Pig however, despite several Ottawans being occupied with what sounded like an excellent training weekend rerunning some past A meet courses in central New York, a much larger contingent of Canadians showed up. Also, given a few more weeks to get their terrain running legs working after the winter, significantly more Americans than had been in North Carolina, although the best US competitors were a little bit thin on the ground. Whereas in North Carolina, both men and women from the A and B lists of the US Standing Team ran, at Flying Pig the US team was represented by Hannah Burgess from the B list on the women's side and by three men from the C list, Keith Andersen, Clem McGrath and Nikolay Nachev. It'll be interesting to see how things shake out at the US Team Trials in Georgia in a couple of weekends given that some contenders won't have run in any A meets this year in preparation. Likely the warm winter in much of North America will have given most of them sufficient opportunity to train in snow-free woods - here's hoping everyone took advantage well enough to have no regrets over their preparations.

Returning to last weekend, Orienteering Cinncinnati turned in its usual sterling performance of making the best of the terrain at their disposal, offering three middle distance races, each with its own character, and a sprint that started in fast, open parkland, plunged into the variegated, fairly intricate vegetation of a disc golf course, then returned to open parkland for some more fast running to the finish. Scoring for the weekend was based on scores for each race computed based on time relative to the winner, with the best three of four scores counting. On the women's side, Hannah Burgess won overall with three race victories, with Galyna Petrenko of VO2 a close second with one race win and two second places. The bigger news from a Canadian elite perspective came on the men's side with Serghei Logvin winning three of the four races and coming second in the last to win the weekend handily at the head of a Canadian sweep of the top three positions in which I was second, only a little ahead of Mike Waddington, who managed third overall just ahead of a Swede who has recently popped up living in Indiana, Mattias Eriksson, despite not having run the sprint and therefore not being able to throw out his worst race result. GHO's Hans Fransson also had a respectable weekend, improving in each middle distance race to finish third in the last race of the weekend and seventh overall. All told, not bad for Mike, Hans and I but a stellar result for Serghei - he's been fast before, particularly in sprints, but I don't remember him ever stringing together that many races at that level of excellence before. The terrain may not have been the most technical, although the last race required precise orienteering to hit the right ditch or other feature on bland hillsides in thick vegetation, but if he can perform anywhere near as well in terrain types other than spur and reentrant, I think we can anticipate some very good results from him at the higher profile events on the 2012 North American orienteering calendar.

More immediately, I believe Serghei will be doing GHO's training camp and running in the Giant's Rib Raid over the Easter weekend, as will I. After years of having trouble justifying the travel to run in one, it will be my first time participating in one of GHO's adventure running events so I'm looking forward to finally seeing what they're like in person, and to getting in some intense technical training to prepare for the rest of the spring season.

Orienteering in Cappadocia

So I am taking a kind of gap year to travel the world. Two weekends ago I was in Turkey for the Cappadocia Cup. This is my first across the seas race and I was a lot nervous in the start area for my first race. I did my mental relaxation to calm down so I could focus. This is my first time orienteering since last season so it was an adjustment to remember distance and what the features on the map look like in real life.

The Terrain is so different from anything that I have ran on before. There is very little vegetation. There is a lot of rock and caves and the famous rock pillars everywhere. The special features I used were the caves and rock pillars. On the map they are big black shapes with white on the inside. The caves were the same but if it was a cave you could go in there was a V attached to the rock pillar symbol. There where a lot of huge canyons. They some times had tiny little paths going down and up them that you could use.

Sprint terrain

My first race as a Sprint which was 1.7 km. The first few controls I was running around like a chicken with it's head cut off. I made a huge error on control 4 which cost me a lot of time. After that I finely got into of okay orienteering race I need: plan ahead, route choice and attackpoint. The race was a lot better after that. My sprint had no urban in it at all. It was on the side of a highway.

The next race I had was what they called a middle. It was 5.2km long. Man was it a hard run. This time I remembered my key point right off the bat but I got confused because they didn't tell me that I had to run 200m to the start triangle. I figured it out after a few seconds. The start control was just a little flag on the side of a stone gate. A lot of people didn't see it. Going to my first control I was going down a slope and found out it was pure mud. I didn't even find my first control and I was covered in mud. I found the first control with no problem. It was getting down to the next control that was the problem. I figured it out. The next few controls were urban. Man are their tiny streets confusing. After the urban we go into for longer legs  where you need good route choice. I was a lot happier with this race I did make a bad route choice that cost me some time but I was still happy with the run.

The third and final day was in Goreme, the city I was staying in. It seems that each day the map just kept getting more difficult. This was another middle of 4.3km. This race was not as great but it was a lot of fun to run. I could definitely feel my legs were tired from yesterday. This map was all about good route choices. If you didn't have one and you didn't find the control you just ended up running around looking at the controls hoping it was yours. Luckily that didn't happen to me. going from control  4 to 5 there is a huge canyon that there is only one way around and one way down and up. I ended up going off the map trying to find this little trail which is the only way down. I found it because some people where running down it. 

All in all I was very glad that I decided to do this race. It was a great experience and a lot of fun. It definitely is a map that should be ran on before you die. I am currently on route to Pitlochry, Scotland. There I will be running the Big race there called JK. There is suppose to be a lot of people there. Looks liking more mental training is going to be needed to calm down.

                                               Sprint Terrain
    

     Day 2 and 3

Going to my races

 Sprint map

 Day 2 middle

 Day 3 middle