JWOC ~ The Long Distance

The long distance was a tough challenge with route choice orienteering and lots of climb. No one had major mistakes, but the physical challenge was too tough for our team and we are not really used to the extreme route choice orienteering we were exposed to today.

With 169 starters on the men's course the start window was more than 5 hours making it a very long day.

The best performance today was Adam's 115 place in 92min15s, 22min54s behind the winner.

Adam pleased with his performance!

Adam -- "It felt less than 92min running because I was so focused. It was a battle against the course and the climb. Other competitors helped me to push the speed."

Pia --It was interesting to really compare route choice, and then to see how your chosen route could make or break your time."

Trevor -- "Distinct tree in the green! Again!"

Here are the final placings, with the running time (brackets denote time behind the winner).
115 - Adam Woods  92:15 (22:54)
148 - Alex Bergstrom  107:18 (37:57)
153 - Trevor Bray   112:25 (43:04)
162 - Robbie Graham  124:12 (54:51)

99 - Kendra Murray  85:40 (24:58)
120 - Pia Blake  92:15 (31:33)
139 - Jen MacKeigan  125:00 (64:18)

You can view the maps, final results, GPS tracks, a teaser video, photos, and more at the JWOC website.

Tomorrow, Tuesday, is the middle qualifier. For both men and women, there are 3 qualification groups. Those who place 20th or higher from each group go into the A final, those who place 21-40 go in to the B final, and the rest in the C final. The middle final takes place on Wednesday.

Stay tuned to the Team Canada blog for all the behind-the-scenes action! You can also follow us on Facebook and Twitter. You can catch all the JWOC action on their website, and also on Facebook.

Quarantine before the start ~ a long wait for some! 

All the boys were fitted with a  GPS transmitter before start.

2-3 - which route would you choose?!

Alexander in the finish chute

Trevor in the finish chute

Jen finishing strongly!

Adam looking strong after his good performance.

All In a Day's Work

The boys have arrived in Vuokatti after a seemingly endless drive from Helsinki. We promptly got out on the sprint map around the accommodation.

And some intensive virtual training

Or not

Happy Canada Day!

JWOC ~ Sprint Training in Kutna Hora

JWOC is not all play! Here the team is studying the event bulletin on Friday night. Lots of details to go through!

Saturday morning we drove to Kutna Hora, about an hour's drive from Hradec Kralove, for a bit of sprint training and sightseeing. Kutna Hora is a UNESCO World Heritage site and an old city with narrow cobble stone streets and massive cathedrals and buildings.

The official JWOC Opening Ceremony is also scheduled for Sunday afternoon.

From 2-3 ~ left or right??

I think the right route from 7-8 is faster ~ do you agree?

The sprint training gave some tricky route choices on the winding cobblestone streets.

 "Thank God the sprint has only 15m climb and not 60m because that is hard running up cobble stone streets"

--Jen

 "There was one giant hill in today's sprint. Thank God there isn't a hill that big in the JWOC sprint"--Trevor

"I just wish we had some maps like this in Canada!" --Kendra

After the sprint we walked up to the cathedral and then had lunch and another bit of wandering around the streets to get a closer look at the places we had run by earlier.

Tomorrow is a rest day for everyone to recharge their batteries before the long distance on Monday.

JWOC ~ More Long & Middle Training!

I'm told this is a well known technique for helping with all that hill climbing....

This morning (Friday), Team Canada went back to the Long training area and did the second half of the course in a hilly, hilly terrain. The leg 9-10 route alternatives were discussed at length over lunch (see map below - which way would you go? Leave your answer in the comment section!)

Robbie looking strong!

In the afternoon, the Team headed on over to the second middle training map, Chvalecsky Les, and run a short course. The end of the course went through a very rocky area with giant boulders and cliffs. Very tricky!

The tunnel under a railway led to the middle terrain!

Lots of rocky detail!

Everyone had a good day of training. The long training was an opportunity to practice good route choice analysis and learning, while the middle terrain was a reminder of how careful you have to be among all the details on the map!

Trevor Bray!

Back at the hotel in Hradec Kralove, the JWOC event centre is now open, with flags and posters all over the hotel lobby! The Team picked up their accreditation badges and bags of information. 

The next two days will be mostly rest before the first race on Monday. Tomorrow will start with a short sprint practice in the morning, and then some sightseeing.

Stay tuned to the Team Canada blog for all the behind-the-scenes action, as our Canadian athletes count down to the first race on Monday - the long distance! You can also follow us on Facebook and Twitter. You can catch all the JWOC action on their website, and also on Facebook.

JWOC ~ Long & Middle Training

Today, the JWOC team concentrated on Long and Middle distance model training. 

First up was the long distance map, at a 1:15,000 scale. The group started at a restaurant and viewing tower on a hill top, Jiraskova Chata.

Start of the long training.

Coach Brian reports that everyone looks good in the forest, and seem to learn the tricks of the terrain quickly. Below is a map snippet with a couple of long route choice legs that made everyone think hard. Which way would you have chosen between 8 and 9 (leave your answers in the comments below!)

Tough route choice legs. Which way would you have chosen from 8 to 9?

 

The ladies discuss route choice after the training session

Afterwards the team had a packed lunch and time for some relaxation before moving on to the afternoon session on middle distance map.

 

Nice view for lunch!

Relaxation time!

Jennifer tackling a steep hill!

Map sample from the middle distance training

Here are some athlete quotes after the training today:

Today's training for the long is physically really challenging. I think it came as a bit of a surprise to everyone that the running in the white forest was faster than running in yellow, due to long grass. Also, the woods were more tick free!
--Pia

The mental approach to the middle and long terrain is quite different. In the long, one must struggle to read through closely packed contours to plan ahead. In contrast, the middle involved intense concentration on the terrain underfoot. It was easy to ignore the "rocky ground" on the map but unwise to forget the mossy mess attempting to trip you up. Crossing the Polish border on both maps was really fun.
--Adam

Man I am going to have a great bum after all this hill climbing!
--Jen

The long will involve climb. I plan to RISE to the challenge.
--Adam

I have never seen such clean forest under my feet.
--Jen

The Polish border looked a lot more open than the Czech side. Of course, that may have been because it wasn't mapped.
--Trevor

The difference between a distinct tree and a non-distinct tree here is that one is a bit bigger than the other but that doesn't make a world of difference in dark green vegetation.
--Jen

It's like learning to orienteer all over again in these areas and the way they're mapped.
--Robbie

Where is this vegetation boundary they speak of?
--Robbie

The long terrain is very hilly making route choice very important, trying to get a balance of as little climb and distance as possible.
--Alex

Les terrains de la longue distance resemblent un peut aux terrains de Saint-Etienne ou Emily s'entraine. Les terrains de la moyenne sont vraiment sympas, c'est tres agreable de courir sur des terrains difficile techniquement avec de nombreux rochers. Le temps etait ensoleile, en esperant que cela continue.
--Remi

Looking forward to the long and all that climb, well not the climb exactly, but I seem to be dealing with the route choice and long terrain better than the rocks, rocks, rocks and individual trees (which one are they!?) of the middle.
--Kendra

Today I got a lesson on how to descend quickly from a herd of wild goats.
--Alex

Sounds like they're having a good time, at least!

Stay tuned to the Team Canada blog for all the behind-the-scenes action, as our Canadian athletes prepare for competition next week! You can also follow us on Facebook and Twitter. You can catch all the JWOC action on their website, and also on Facebook.


Go Canada Go!

JWOC ~ Team arrives in Hradec Kralove

Team Canada after a short jog through the city

The Junior World Orienteering Championships (JWOC) start this weekend in Hradec Kralove, Czech Republic. All the Team Canada athletes and support crew arrived by Tuesday evening, ready for a week of preparation training and acclimatization.

Our athletes this year are a mix of first-time and seasoned JWOC athletes. Our athletes this year are Adam Woods, Trevor Bray, Alex Bergstrom, Robbie Graham, Pia Blake, Kendra Murray, and Jennifer MacKeigan.

Injuries have plagued the junior team this year. Molly Kemp was offered a spot on the team, but she declined due to ongoing injury. National Junior HPP Coach, Brent Langbakk is currently injured, and was unable to accompany the team to Europe. Brian Graham stepped up last minute to fill the coaching role ~ thanks Brian! Brent and Molly, get well soon. We hope to see you both in Europe next year!


Today, Wednesday, the team went out for a short jog around the city to shake out their traveling legs. This afternoon, the team did some training on the model map for the relay. With them was guest member Remi Baudot from St.Etienne in France (pictured in blue below).

The training was in a flat area with lots of trails, ditches and vegetation features. When asked what she took away from this training, Pia said, "We have to learn what is mapped as distinct trees in the middle of a green area. It was usually large oak trees in otherwise coniferous forest."

Adam found it to be a challenge with the shades of green and vegetation boundaries, but had lots of fun. The forest was wet, and ditches filled with water after several days of rain. The team is hoping for drier weather in the coming days.

Here the team is ready for training. What do you think of the new Team Canada outfits??

A snippet from the model training map

Stay tuned to the Team Canada blog for all the behind-the-scenes action, as our Canadian athletes prepare for competition next week! You can also follow us on Facebook and Twitter. You can catch all the JWOC action on their website, and also on Facebook.

Go Canada Go!

Tallinn Orienteering Week: Full of Variety

I have just gotten “home” (i.e., to Uppsala) from Tallinn O Week, which was all together terrific, and offered some very diverse races.

As the name suggests, it was a week-long (Monday–Saturday) event in and around Tallinn, the capital of Estonia.  I met up with fellow Canadian Jennie Anderson (from Orienteering Ottawa) and we stayed in a hostel right in downtown Tallinn, with a bunch of other orienteers from around the world.

Welcome to Tallinn!

Each day brought a new style of orienteering:

Monday – Sprint (park) –WRE

We jumped right in to the week with a World Ranking Event (WRE)  in Kadrioru Park, which includes the president’s palace and an art museum that’s surrounded by a labyrinth of ramps and walls (=traps!). This race was a blast, with fast running and tricky navigation around the aforementioned walls.  

Tuesday – Middle (forest)

I ended up running this one without a compass (that’s what happens when you neglect your pre-race-day routine) so I really had to focus on choosing strong handrails and attack points. The last few controls involved some of the steepest hills I have ever side-hilled across. It was also very thick, with deadfall, tall shrubs, and stinging nettle; the kind of forest that “builds character”…

Wednesday – Middle (old town)

Perhaps my favourite race of the week (or at least the one that most exceeded expectations) was the “City Race” through the cobblestone streets of the medieval old town. We used a sprint map (1:4000, ISSOM) but with distances and winning times for a middle. I thought that sprint-style navigation would be too easy at a slower, middle-distance pace, but I was wrong. The course was jam-packed with challenging route choices and the narrow, crooked streets did not permit any lapses in concentration. I had a few unnecessary hooks and curves, some small mistakes (ex: missed the passageway to control 2), and at one point I almost ran inside a restaurant by mistake, but overall I was happy with how it went. I tried to choose smooth routes, ones without too many zig-zags and with gentle slopes instead of steep stairs. Stairs slow me down a lot, whether I am going up or down them, and they make it very hard to read my map. An example of this is leg 6, where I took a slightly longer route but I was able to run the whole way and got a chance to read ahead. Jennie took the stairs instead, and says they were gruelling. 

Check out my route here: http://www.lsf.ee/Tulemused/RG/cgi-bin/reitti.cgi?act=map&id=136&kieli=en (class N21A). Which routes would you have chosen?

This race was fun not only because of the technical challenge, but also because it was exciting to run among centuries-old buildings and confused tourists. The pointed stone towers of the city walls look like something from a fairy tale, and all the restaurant greeters are dressed in medieval costumes.

On the way to control 12

Thursday – Middle (forest)

Since this was an informal race, I decided to do a shorter course to rest up for Friday’s WRE. I chose to run women’s 21C, and quickly discovered that it was not only shorter than 21A, but also simpler, with trails to follow the whole way. My day’s goal had been to visualize each control feature, so the easy navigation allowed me to focus almost solely on that, and it ended up being a good training exercise. After the thick forest on Tuesday, it was exhilarating to speed through some open, sandy pine forest.

Friday – Middle (forest) – WRE

Again a new terrain type, with ridges and depressions. There were small areas of thick deadfall, but also some heavenly, open, mossy forest. This was a classic middle that called for a variety of techniques: some simplification, some detailed navigation, some straight bearings…

See my GPS track here: http://sportrec.navirec.com/ui/#18rs76f

Saturday – Long (forest)

The Tallinn O Week final was not a typical long-distance race. It was called the “100 CP” – yes, as in 100 control points. Only the men’s elite course actually had a full 100 controls, but my course (elite women) had 70, which was plenty! At 9.5 km, that’s an average of one control every 136m. As you might guess, it took a lot of concentration. A few times my thumb slipped from its place and I had to search for my spot again. Towards the end, the control codes and control numbers were all starting to blend together.

100CP Normal map (1:10 000)

To make things even more interesting, controls 24-52 were on a separate map (printed on the back side of our normal map), which was 1:5000 and contours (and marshes) only.

 

100CP Contours only (1:5000)

Our control descriptions did not fit in one column.

Besides all the fantastic orienteering, we also got a chance to do normal-tourist stuff. Jennie and I spent several days happily exploring the old town and going to museums. It’s a beautiful place, and I really enjoyed the whole trip.