HPP Winter Happenings

Yes, Canadian orienteers typically face a major obstacle in their orienteering training for 6 months of the year: winter. Nevertheless, things have happened, and thanks to my good friend google I've been able to track come up with some updates and results from some of the HPP members. One would assume that if any of them had exciting things going on that I didn't mention, they'd probably post it themselves *cough* *cough*.

- Vancouver Sprint Camp: This event probably deserved an entire post on its own, but I'll give a quick update. The camp happened this year Feb. 11-13, under pretty rainy skies. With 10 activities in 2 & 1/2 days, there was no shortage of orienteering opportunities. The big highlight this year was the WRE at the Surrey Bike Park, which was a baffling array of singletrack trails and thick forest in between. I just yesterday dug a thorn from my hand that I got during this race. There were also presentations from Gold Medal Olympic rowers, and on using a headcam as part of training. You can see results, photos, and the video from the headcam at http://www.orienteeringbc.ca/sprint/. All in all I think the entire weekend was viewed favourably by all participants, despite the occasionally atrocious weather. I was especially pleased to meet the Hong Kong crew that traveled over for the camp, and would like to propose that to give Vancouver a break next year, we switch it just a bit further west. Just a bit west and south of the international date line.

Other events/results:

- Ottawa Winter Triathlon: Robbie Anderson and Jon Torrance laced up the skates/boots/shoes for this one, and Skate-Ski-Run race on the Rideau Canal. Robbie missed the 5000m world record time by a scant 40 seconds, though its also possible that everybody ran the wrong way and did only 3.7k. A full report is on Robbie's blog on Attackpoint

- Prince George Iceman: If there were a gold medal for the most number of times winning the silver medal in a single race, it'd go to Mike Smith in the PG Iceman. Take the above activities, but then add a second run, AND a swim, and you've got a pretty epic race. Results are available here.

- World Student Games, Turkey: Colin Abbott raced for Canada in February in Turkey for the World Student Games, and was the top Canadian in the 15k pursuit. From what I hear the snow and course were not entirely amazing, and a large portion of the team was sick a lot of the time. Apparently Turkey is gearing up for an Olympics bid, though!

- Canada Winter Games, Halifax: Colin, Dahria Beatty, and myself were in Halifax for the Cross Country Skiing Event of Canada Winter Games. Dahria has some awesome results, placing in the top 10 in all of the races, and Colin cracking out a top 15 and qualifying 10th in the sprint. They were both skiing for the Yukon. I, being too old to race, was there being a guide for a blind skier. I daresay I was more nervous than most of the athletes simply because my biggest fear was causing another person to smash into a tree.

Upcoming Events:

- World Ski-O Championships, Sweden: Robbie & Nick Duca are heading to Sweden in a few weeks for the world Ski-o Championships in Tanndalen. I'm not quite sure what sort of updates we'll be able to get from the event (aside from the inevitable blog post), but the website is

at http://www.skiwoc2011.com.

- Portugal O-Meeting: The most popular early season event around, Carol Ross, Emily Ross (heck, all the Ross') and Emily Kemp are heading there as we speak to get in a week of hopefully awesome weather and some sweet orienteering. There are four races, including a WRE on day 3. The website says "Live on March 5 at 8AM", so for any night owls, you may be able to follow the race here: http://www.gd4caminhos.com. This will undoubtedly lead to a blog update, so stay tuned for that.

Well, that's all I (and Google) can think of for the time being.

AthletesCAN?

Most people when they see "AtheletsCAN" think of the plethora of messages from the mailing list O-squad. Some may not even recognize the name having created an email filter long ago. I had been following the emails irregularly but was contemplating ways of cutting back on extraneous emails from my inbox. Then, Brent asked if any Ottawa folks would be interested in attending the annual AthletesCAN Forum in late October since it was being held in Gatineau. After much indecision on my part and occasional prompting from Brent, Jeff and I decided we would go. I had accumulated some knowledge of the organization from the emails and limited perusing of their website but I couldn't see why Brent was so excited about us going to the forum and AthletesCAN in general. Sure, he's an energetic guy, but he was more enthusiastic then usual. As it turns out, there was good reason for Brent's involvement and persistence. Here are some questions that I had going into the forum and the answers I found coming out:

What is AthletesCAN, really?

If you check out their About Us page, you'll find a lot of high level mission statements and what not, but in short, AthletesCAN is a group of national team athletes, looking after fellow national team athletes. Let's think about this for a second. Imagine an organization full of active and retired athletes from all different sports, all very passionate about what they do, and all looking to support and develop sporting in Canada! Not only is this really cool but it's completely centered around Canada's National Team Athletes.

What does AthletesCAN do? that is, other then writing us emails...

Turns out quite a bit. AthletesCAN is an association for all sports in Canada. This is significant because, as Jeff and I found out at the forum, there are a lot of sports in this country. Some are big (hockey), some small (kayaking) and some virtually unknown... To rub shoulders with Olympians fresh out of the Vancouver Olympics and hear them complain about their National Sports Organization (our NSO is the COF) was both humbling and enlightening. Like any institution they draft proposals, write recommendations, hold elections but they do other stuff too.

Why should I care?

In some ways you can consider AthletesCAN as a connection to the big fish. There are multiple programs and services they offer to national team athletes. These include: comprehensive telecommunications services¹ with Bell (a phone for free²), free Speaker's Training through Dale Carnegie, legal counseling, and most recently a Health & Dental Benefits Plan. You can see the full list of programs and services here. We're talking some real tangible benefits that can help you live your life at a daily level. Also, AthletesCAN is deeply involved with Sports Canada which, distributes a very large quantity of funding to NSO's and athletes alike.

Where does Brent fit into all this?

As a former National Team member, Brent is our elected Athletes' Representative. In other words, he is the link between us the orienteerers, the COF and AthletesCAN. The Athlete Rep is a voting member of the COF's Board of Directors as well as the High Performance Committee. It's Brent's job to communicate with us and make sure our interests are represented at the higher levels. In effect, create positive change for us and orienteering too.

So, if you're aspiring to make a National Team, on the team, or recently retired, there is support should you need it. If you have a query or a concern about a policy or some administrative decision, talk to your friendly Athlete Representative.

Orienteering is a sport, and all though it is relatively small compaired to some, it is none the less a part of the bigger picture. Folks like Charlotte and Brent, to name two of many, are actively developing and growing the organization so that we can focus on what's important. Know that, while we slog through base training, sights set on 2011, there are people behind the scenes working hard to help us achieve our goals and dreams.

1. Only for Senior National Team athletes. Keep training Juniors, you'll get there eventually.
2. So long as you stay on the National Team. For complete details visit the AthletesCAN website.

PWT: China Part 2 – Because if TV shows can draw a story out….

Post middle-distance race, we had a day off. Well, sort of. In theory we were all supposed to go and race at the China 100m orienteering championships, but it appeared to be decided that we would show up, but weren't going to do it. I was actually a little bummed, I’d seen a map of it before, and I wanted to do it! But, I was the non-vocal minority, so, we all showed up in jeans ready to watch, cheer, and then proceed to the Forbidden City to do some sightseeing. We were then informed that yes, we were definitely racing. To be completely honest, considering twice on this trip we had anticipating doing/not doing something and the complete opposite happened, so I actually brought my running stuff, but no one else did, so I didn't want to be the only one rolling up to the start line actually prepared. As you can see by the photo, it’s some of the world’s best ready to rock this race, completely unprepared.

I should touch on this race because while many of the Europeans were less than impressed by it, I thought it was a really great race idea. It was a super short race, about 800 metres, on a really small scale map. It took us about 3:40. After a qualifying round which appeared to take the top 24, they then had 2 mass start heats of 12 which appeared to be an A final and a B final.

Obviously there were several butterflies, and a bunch of changes in direction. It was not super difficult; I had some issues with figuring out which number to go to next, since one had 9/11/17 on it. Counting is hard! As a bonus, all of this was done in the shadow of the Bird’s Nest Stadium, a really great place to hold something like this. Anyway, I think with a little creativity with course making, you could make a great super-sprint a la skiing, with Top 30 qualifying, and then quarters, semis, and finals. It could be done in a particularly small urban area. Yet another possible way to make orienteering (albeit quasi-) seem a little cooler in our country. Check out the neat photo Murray took at this race here: https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYEGc8P10GFLzcdL7xurQ7xO5ln8TqdwUzWuCgPqkSQ-6XMX5LRN27sjMYKJdCHQFOCQP4SDKKc2wUigx5te9qOgl-WX0EkYOAkubfAvMPm7W-QwRcHqjdQDCCK9WwAqNwFxYWKMgwqns/s1600/SDC10911.JPG. Post race I did about think I spent about 20 minutes signing autographs, again I assume because I’m just really tall.

Afterwards we did the world’s fastest tour through the Forbidden City, somewhat to my chagrin, and then popped over to look around Tiananmen Square and related sites, got accosted by more “students” who want to show us their “school”, which is really just an attempt to sell us their paintings.

Sadly, our trip was nearing its end, but we still had one final race. Apparently it was originally supposed to again around the Olympic Stadium, but something happened and we went back to the Summer Palace to race there. There is no shortage of cool places to race in Beijing. Well, it was my first time in China, so its all cool. Except the bathrooms. Not cool at all. The race was basically held at the foot of a relatively round, though large, hill, with some nice buildings on top. If you’ve seen the map of the race from the PWT website (found here: http://www.pwt.org/download/maps2010/China2010_3.gif), you can see we ran above the palace. The race was probably my favourite of the year, simply because of the neat location we were racing in, the sights along the way, and the different challenges we encountered during the race. It had a little bit of everything, and really felt like an adventure of a sprint race. I had a great time. I would have liked to be a bit faster, I made a bit of a mistake going from one to two as I followed the creek and saw a tunnel but read the map to mean it was blocked off, though on closer inspection later, it wasn’t, and I could have run right through it, instead of going back and around. Still, I beat some fast people, and was very close to other fast people, but still my typical 1:45 behind the winner. Curse you, 1 minute and 45 seconds! Here’s a photo I took in the style of Magnus’ photo from Trondheim (though photoshopped from two photos), looking towards the route from 8 to 9 and the tree where 9 used to be.

Eventually, it was time to fly back to England, but I, and everyone else, was immensely satisfied with the trip. We all had a lengthy discussion about how coming to China should be a more regular occurrence, that we would be willing to be more involved, perhaps by doing some map making or some coaching. Its worth noting, too, that I chatted with a bunch of the group (including a certain World Sprint Champ), and they all said they’d be super keen to come to Canada to do some orienteering. They were all very understanding of the budgetary constraints we face and couldn’t quite mimic what China has done, but they mostly came on the trip because it was a really great way to end the season anyway. Do some travelling, some racing, and just have a good time. I think that if we came up with some sort of two week mini-tour of Edmonton-Calgary-Canmore-Kamloops-Vancouver/Whistler which involved some racing, some sightseeing, and volunteers with beds along the way, we’d have some solid interest. I’m sure the same thing would be possible in the east as well. Let’s make it happen!

I’m happy to have checked China off my list of countries to have orienteered in. I ate more rice in a week than I think I have ever had in my entire life, and sampled many meats of which the source was entirely unknown. I can't count the number of times I heard "Hey beautiful man you want jacket I give you cheap price?". I think my lungs are significantly more charred after a week of breathing the air. We spent an inordinate amount of time on a bus stuck in traffic. Or in a taxi stuck in traffic, or shoulder charging my way onto the subway. Or hitting my head on everything. BUT, if the opportunity comes up again, I will be the first to book a flight. And you should come too!

And, of course, a big thanks to the Park World Tour, and Nordic Ways, a sports company that brings nordic sports to China. What a great idea! I wonder if they're hiring?

Park World Tour: China-licious!

When I was in Scotland for my first PWT (or, oft referred to by the Euros as the PVT) event in September, at some point during the banquet, the organizers said that there might be another PWT this year, possibly in China. I leaned to the person sitting beside me and said, “If that happens, I’m totally going”. Though I had some steak and kidney pie in my mouth at the time and he may not have understood what I was saying, the point was, I didn’t care what I was doing, if I could orienteer in China, I would drop everything and do it. 6 weeks later, and I did! Despite moving halfway across England (think… Edmonton to Calgary!), starting an internship and having an exam the day after I get back, I hit China as the lone athlete from Canada to provide my unique brand of orienteering (Start à Get Lost à Repeat).

I arrived in Beijing to exactly what someone might expect from China, with very very low visibility due to presumably a combination of cloud and smog. The adventure immediately started when my friendly pick-up from the airport dropped me off at a building at the Beijing Sport University, lead me to the lobby with the smoking security guard, said “goodbye”, and left. Turns out there were people waiting for me down a couple of hallways, but there was some brief minutes of extreme concern being left in a random place in a country where absolutely nobody speaks your language. And, as it turns out, China is an extremely foreign country.

Once all the dust settled I found my place to stay; rooming with the Czechs, who were cool guys. For the next couple of days we had some opportunities to do some training and some sightseeing around town.

The second training was in conjunction with what appeared to be the school relays of the Chinese Championships at the Olympic forest, a fully man-made park just North of the Olympic venues. Looking at Google Earth its actually much bigger than we experienced, it’s a shame we only used such a small area.

Anyway, the event was an impressive sight, tons and tons of school children running around, all super keen about orienteering.

Many of them were pretty fast, but tended to lose time because they all employed the time tested strategy of “run really fast. Stop. Run really fast. Stop.” Still, it was a sight to behold, and the Chinese did really well with making the start exciting with a big mass start with a long run out before hitting the start triangle. It meant everyone basically left the stadium running. I took notes.

The next day it was our turn to compete as part of the Chinese National Championships sprint. It was in the same area, using part of the same map as well a new part. It was unfortunate because despite being a potentially fun and confusing area, it was probably not used to its maximum because the course was relatively easy. Naturally, I found a way to drop the ball on number 10, but despite that it was largely a runner’s course. I ended up 11th, but that was okay because of the caliber of runners that were there. As an “elite” orienteer, I probably had no business being there! I finished my standard 1:45 behind the winner, who happened to also be the sprint world champion. Unfortunately it also seems like the world ranking numbers didn’t think he tried very hard, and I didn’t get nearly as good world ranking points as I would have hoped.

Here’s the map of the race http://www.pwt.org/download/maps2010/China2010_1.gif . Legs 4-5 and 5-6 are indicative of the less than ideal course planning. But, regardless of that, it was still super fun, there were tons of people, and the Chinese deserve mad props for the event. Post-race, we all gathered on stage and stood around while several gazillion pictures were taken of us as a group, and we spent another 10 minutes taking pictures with people. I think my main attraction was that I was two feet taller than everyone else.

After of day of re-hydrating and visiting this…only kind of impressive wall-like structure in the middle of China, we had another race, a middle-distance-ish race at Bei Gong Forest Park, north of town. The first thing we did on race day was get stuck in traffic. For two hours. This also included missing the turn to the race and getting the bus stuck on a powerline. It should also be noted that the trip home took about 25 minutes.

The race itself was really fun, as per usual it took me three or four controls to get the hang of things, so I try not to look at the results list. Instead, I’m pleased about the fact that I hung on to the two Austrians that caught me, lead them for a couple of controls, and managed to drop them on occasion. Scratch the waste and I would have dropped a solid 3 or 4 minutes. The terrain was a kooky little mix of brush and open terraces. Here’s the race map: http://www.pwt.org/download/maps2010/China2010_2.gif.

There were holes everywhere which for most of the race I was convinced with graves, which made me terrified to fall in one. You’ll notice that there are graves marked on the map, so I was convinced all the other holes were empty graves too! Turns out they are apparently holes for new trees. But, at the time, definitely graves. I had to detract my mental opinions that I thought it was highly inappropriate to put a control on the dirt knoll that was made from digging a grave. Sorry China, minor mis-understanding. Also of note were the remarkably aggressive thorns of the Chinese countryside. The picture shows the size of the two thorns that were just about 80% into my leg. I had to stop after getting hit by one of them because I thought I'd just be bitten by something. Youch!

Post-race, I went for a jog up the mountain with Murray and got a solid view of the city. Now that the weather was finally clear, we got a fantastic view of the city, and it is very impressive. Rather than word it, here’s a picture:

At this point, there was still one more day of sightseeing, which included a fun little event which I think we should do sometime, a visit to the forbidden city, and the final PWT sprint at the Summer Palace. Part 2 will happen when it happens!

Adventures in France, Continued.

I've been in France for nearly three weeks and each weekend has been packed with orienteering. The first two weekends held the World Cups in Annecy and Geneva, which you can read about below. This past weekend was an action-packed two days hosted by the St-Étienne club NOSE.

The adventure started with a winding drive through the Parc Naturel Livradois-Forez. In contrast to National Parks, a Parc Naturel is intended to protect not only the natural setting but also traditional ways of life. You could really see the need for this protection as we passed by many boarded up buildings in villages in danger of extinction.

The orienteering started with a middle distance in some tricky rocky terrain at the Chalmazel Ski Station. This was a great event and we even had gps tracking for the elites! You can see the map and some embarrassing gps tracks here ;)

Shortly after the middle finished, it was time for a night-0 on the same map. Using my connections (i.e., Emily), I was able to stay with NOSE (plus Theirry Gueorgiou, Olav Lundanes and Johan Runesson) at a ski lodge right on the map. The club provided amazing food: roast duck, stuffed pork, yummy salads, lots of cheese and fruit! Everyone was so nice and welcoming.

Sunday morning we woke up to snow! People did not believe me when I said it was probably warmer in Canada. However, a fun relay made it worth getting out of our warm beds! And that was that, another great orienteering weekend close to my new home :)

View from the spectator control down to the ski area.  Photo: Loic Le Goff

Athletes' Rep Report

The AthletesCAN Forum is coming up at the end of the month. I am really excited to participate again this year. Last year, Patrick Goeres was able to step in for me as my son, Stian, was due right around the Forum date. This year, as it is being held in Gatineau, the COF has chipped in for locals, Eric Kemp and Jeff Teutsch, to take part. Jeff will be helping in the KidsCAN School Day, too.

In preparation for the Forum, we were asked to reflect a bit on our role this past season. I thought it would be worth sharing my thoughts. You can check out the Athletes Rep Report to see what the High Performance Committee and I have been up to this past year.

Canada represents at World Cup races

After an eventful September, with half the Canadian Women's Team relocating to France, Carol Ross and Emily Kemp have burst onto the World Cup scene... well at least we're finishing! Let's just say that World Cup events here are just a smidge tricky ;)

Our debut started in the beautiful French Alp town of Annecy. Day 1 was action packed, starting with the Orient-Show. This unique event took place in an arena with a fence maze and lots of snazzy blow up features. Everyone ran 3 three-minute races and then the fastest runners qualified for the semi-final, and if they really were fast enough, the final! It was pretty darn exciting to watch and the media was there in full force interviewing Carol on French radio... in french!!!

Orient-Show amazing-ness!!

By the time all of the buzz from the Orient-show had died down, it was already time to start warming up for the sprint in downtown Annecy. Fortunately, those who missed the memo about it being a night sprint were able to exchange their passport for the use of a petzl headlamp. Phew!

Carol tearing up the field!

Day 2 held the major event of the weekend... the grueling 9km long distance. This was real orienteering; crevasses to evade, hills to trudge up, and enough contours details at a 1:15000 scale to make you cross-eyed. We suggest that anyone who has WOC 2011 on their calendar should brush up on their magnifier skills.

With only 5 days of recovery, we were right back in amongst the company of Simone Niggli and Thierry Gueorgiou except this time at the World Cup Final in Geneva, Switzerland.

We started out with a 5km middle distance course which was quite refreshing after our adventures in Annecy. The terrain was, again, very physically challenging with some real Swiss style climb... up and down.

Is it a Dane? Is it a Czech? No! It's a Suisse!! It's Daniel Hubmann!!!

The elite runner’s season came to a spectacular finish on Sunday with the PostFinance Sprint. The race was set up so that spectators were able to see runners hot off the starting ramp, then again as they surged through the map exchange, and finally when they blazed into the finish. Lots of excitement going on everywhere!!

My goodness, those were two pretty hard core weekends but with some great company all-round!! Even though this World Cup season is over we've already put next season's World Cups on the horizon! You never know, these two Canadians may make top 40 ranked next year and you'll see us on the starting list for the PostFinance Sprint alongside Simone Niggli and Helena Jansson! ;)