WOC 2016: The forest races

The forest races at the World Champs were the two I was really excited about. The Long Distance final in my mind is the true test - the winner of this race is indeed the best orienteer in the world. There is no race I respect more, and no race I would rather excel in. In a lot of ways, the Long tends to play to my strengths - I often make good route choices, I run well over long distances, and I'm tough as nails. Also, my favorite part of this sport is running through the woods, and the Long Distance offers plenty of that. So, I was psyched to run.

The second forest race I'd be running was the relay - the star of the World Championships show! The WOC relay highlights those teams with depth as well as individual talent, and to me there is no higher honor than to be chosen for your country's relay team. Our team of Sam, myself, and Hannah weren't sure who we'd be gunning for, but our main goal was to try and move up from our start position, that reflects last year's result (20th).

Long Distance Final
One of the main differences between the forested terrain in Sweden and the terrain at home is the amount of squish. At home, the ground off-trail is soft in that it has a thin layer of slowly-decaying deciduous leaves on it, and sometimes has some groundcover growing in the dirt. But really, it's pretty firm underfoot. In Sweden, especially along the west coast where it rains a LOT, everything is covered in moss, of varying thicknesses. You've got moss under blueberry bushes, moss under pine forests, moss over the rocks, moss in all the swamps. Every step, your foot sinks, taking all the potential energy that you have from the two-feet-in-the-air part of your running stride and eliminating it into a mossy pile of squish. So attempts at moving quickly almost look like slow motion, with many Scandinavian orienteers adopting a running style with a much lower cadence and longer stride. That takes strength, gained primarily through the hours you put in training through this stuff. You ever run or walk through a bog? That's essentially what we're doing here.

Final control in the long

In training, I was handling the squish relatively well. It's definitely hard work, heavy on the legs, but doable. I thought I knew what to expect when I entered the forest with a number pinned on. I wasn't expecting to win the race, but I believed in myself that with a clean run, I had the fitness and the fortitude to place relatively well.

Right off the bat, the course setter threw a long (~4km) route choice at us. I expected some long legs, and I knew that it was worth it to look wide for faster routes. I also knew, given this terrain, that straighter is not necessarily faster, so if I could connect up little fragments of trails, that would be to my advantage.

Click for larger map.

With only a 1-minute leg to the first control, I needed more time to make a decision. I stood at that first control for probably 45 seconds, clock ticking in my head, trying to figure out the best route to the second. Even spending almost a minute standing there without moving is preferable to choosing wrong and paying for your wrong choice with extra distance and energy expenditure. Ultimately, I chose wrongly, settling on a route that went wide in the wrong places and hugged the line in the wrong places, sending me through logged areas and too many marshes, and finishing with an insecure attackpoint. Even worse than choosing wrongly, I executed my route terribly, losing over 5 minutes on mistakes and hesitations and micro-routes. Before I'd even reached the second control, my legs were toasted. The Australian from 10 minutes behind me caught up as I was splashing my way through a swamp, half swimming, and I tried to match her pace once I'd extricated myself, but nothing happened when I asked my legs for more oomph.

These are the route choices selected by World of O. My route did not follow any of those logical ways. I sort of started with the blue route, then swapped to green, then headed towards red, then made my own damn path through the maximum amount of logged rough open before meeting back up with red and blue.

This is the part of the race I'm pretty upset about. Not about the race, but rather about my reaction when faced with the consequences of a bad decision. This was outside of the realm of my pre-race visualization. I simply hadn't considered that I might not have good legs on the day of the race. Or that I just wouldn't be strong enough to handle the terrain. All the signs had been so good in my lead-up, that when my oomph-bucket ran empty, I was sort of paralyzed. And I gave up. 

I don't mean that I stopped moving - the thought of dropping out briefly flitted across my consciousness, but that's even more shameful - but I let my focus drift, and I wallowed in my misery. I didn't feel like I was racing, I didn't feel like I belonged at that level, and I just didn't want to be out there suffering anymore. It wasn't a long wallow, but it was enough to lose my focus, causing nearly three minutes lost on my way to the third control, and another three minutes on the way to the 4th. My give-a-damn was well busted, and I hadn't brought any duct tape to fix it. 

It's physically painful for me to write about this. I've always prided myself on being so tough, able to handle anything that's thrown at me, that admitting to giving up like this is almost as bad as the feeling while it was happening. I managed to kick myself out of the funk by the 4th control, and ran cleanly to the next few controls, but I was so slow. Even when I took the road route choice to 6, I felt like I was barely managing a jog. I saw some other runners from 6-9, but then made another 2-minute mistake attacking 9. I was mad at myself, which was a good sign, some of the fight was coming back. But then we hit the arena passage, and I stumbled my way past all the people, and I just wanted to curl up in a corner and hide. 

Crawling up a hill out of the arena, I was telling myself that if I was going to be this slow, I HAD to hit all the controls perfectly. I was going through the motions that should spike controls, but I failed to execute properly, and dropped another 5 minutes on my way to #15. When I finally stumbled across the finish line, the most prominent feeling was that of shame. For being so slow. For losing so much unnecessary time in mistakes (17 minutes!). For being the best option the US had had available to put forward on that day, and feeling like I was a really terrible option. For letting down all my supporters and sponsors who believed in me and were waiting to see what I could do. For giving up, and not fighting tooth and nail for every second, despite the challenges. 

As a friend said to me, the beauty of sport is also in the broken dreams. 

The Relay

After a bit of a wallow, I managed to get my shit together and start focusing on the relay. The Long had been a really tough race, even if I'd been feeling good, and I had spent a really long time out there suffering. A short jog on hard surfaces Friday felt fine, but I knew I wasn't at 100% as I warmed up for the relay. To make matters worse, my stomach was mildly upset, possibly from the strange food timing since the race started at 4pm. But whatever happened physically, my plan was to ***ing NAIL the navigation. There are things you can control, and there are things you can't, and I intended to fight for every second, regardless of how my body responded to the effort. Beyond proving to myself that I was capable of doing this, the relay is a team event, and I did not want to let down my teammates.

Sam went out fast, and had a totally solid first leg, coming back in 15th position with a small pack of Estonia, Poland, and Spain. I had been hearing the announcer talking about how the men were losing gobs of time in the low-visibility areas, so my plan was to mostly run my own race, and stay very much in control so as to not make any mistakes. I left the arena with Estonia, and we converged with Spain, Poland, and Austria out in the forest. The first part of the course was really fun, technical and difficult, and though I made a small mistake on the 3rd control (in the green), I was pleased with my navigation. Then we had to go uphill to the 6th control, and I felt like I was moving backwards, I was going so slowly. I had to walk most of the hill. My legs just did not work. It wasn't even a matter of oomph, they just didn't function. 

I chose to go around to the left to get to 7, and then I made an error in execution, losing some 45 seconds. That lost me the back of the pack I'd been trailing, and I struggled physically in the final loop after the arena passage. Ukraine passed me climbing the hill to #10, and Bulgaria got me climbing the hill to #12. I just had nothing to give, even though in my head I was screaming to claw back every second. It was so depressing to be unable to move, but I tried to focus on the action items, finding each control as efficiently as possible. 

Click for full-sized map

I tagged to Hannah in 21st position, and she had a solid run, but with a big mistake on the first control. New Zealand and Canada both snuck by, but she made a pass on Bulgaria, taking us home in 22nd position. Though this is two spots worse than last year, our position last year was inflated by both Russia and Poland disqualifying. It was still not the result we'd hoped for, but it was all we were capable of on the day.

Sam, me, Hannah

The World Championships always has the potential to be a real roller-coaster of emotions. This one certainly was, for me. I am coming away from this competition disappointed, but with my head up, bruised and battered but not completely broken. Failure is the greatest teacher, and success does not build character.

The next competitions are in three weeks - the US Championships followed by the North American Championships. I will be there, head held high, ready to fight. 

Because dammit, I love this sport and where it's taken me.

Stromstadmedeln and Kvillebyns klassiska

In an act of extravagant first-world privilege, I went to Sweden last weekend. Tickets were cheap, but that doesn't offset an airplane injecting carbon dioxide exactly where it is least needed. Blinders on, pass the buck to the next generation and the populations least able to deal with the effects of climate change. 

Um, I meant to talk about racing, not first-world privilege and the associated guilt. 

The US will pick our World Orienteering Championships (WOC) team in June for this summer's competition in Sweden, but I decided to take the gamble that I will probably get selected, and get started on my terrain-specific preparation. While orienteering maps all follow the International Specifications for Orienteering Mapping (ISOM) standards, the terrain being depicted by these standard symbols looks and feels different depending on where you are in the world. When a map or terrain feels familiar, like the maps around Boston, it is very easy to find controls. Comfortable. I subconsciously adjust my routes and my path through the forest based on past experiences and intuition.

But when I go somewhere else to orienteer, there is an adjustment period, at the physical, mental, and emotional level. Traveling to a country ahead of time, especially if it is adjacent to the competition arenas, is incredibly valuable. Emotionally, I have the time to figure out how the heck I am supposed to get from point A to point B, and I mean in a car, people. The stress of traveling in a new country is legit, and will actually take away from the energy you need to race. I now have a very good idea of where the speed cameras are between Gothenburg and Stromstad... I also have an understanding of what sort of food I can get in the grocery stores. Details matter. Did you know Sweden claims the highest volume of candy consumed in all of Europe? 

The IOF has embargoed the actual forests we'll be using for the races, but, there are maps adjacent to these areas, and all over, really, since this is Sweden. The border guards not only know WHAT orienteering is, but likely volunteered at the race you just left. The big teams spend weeks in training camps for the year prior to WOC, and most people from the smaller teams who are good at the sport have found some excuse to move to the right country to prepare. Part of me gets all upset that I'm trying (and failing) to compete against professional athletes, or athletes taking 8 years to finish an undergrad degree, and part of me thanks my lucky stars I can balance a meaningful career while pursuing my athletic dreams on the side.

So anyway, I wanted to go to Sweden to prepare for WOC. Time for a double whammy and get in some race starts against a deeper field than I usually see at home. We've got some really talented runners in the US, but we're so spread out that we never run against each other. Racing in Sweden, every weakness is exposed. I sort of crashed the OK Linné training camp, courtesy of Ross and Sam, and shared a cabin with US teammates Brendan and Cristina. It was great to see all my favorite expats, play some 7 Wonders, and have a place to actually cook dinner.

I enjoyed the morning commute to a different city than my usual beat. I landed at Gatwick at 8am on Friday, spent the day visiting family, and then back to the airport in the evening to complete the journey. 

Stromstadmedeln

I didn't have any big results goals for these races. You have to know your limitations before you can rise above them, and operating on five hours of sleep the day after a redeye transatlantic flight in terrain you've never seen before is a pretty hefty set of limitations. Luckily, Ross and Brendan and I (and one of the OK Linné girls, Cat) did a short morning exercise on the Tveteskogen map, and that helped me get my head into orienteering-mode, and my legs into running-over-mossy-ground mode. My plan for the race was to take it steady, one control at a time and practice some of the habits I've been working on over the winter. Ignore the physical side of things, because if I think too much about how tired I am, that's just unproductive.

Click the map to see full-size map and route.

I started out pretty rough. A miss in the circle at the first control, and then I totally mis-read the contours on the way to 2, expecting the cliff to be on the near side of a hill that was still going up, as opposed to the far side of that hill, descending to a valley. That was a costly one, and between those two first controls I'd already given myself a 4-minute penalty. D'oh! I took about 5 seconds at control #2 to regroup, refocusing on the process goals. Things improved mightily from there, and I steadily moved through the course, sucking wind like a champ on the climbs trying to ignore my leaden legs, and keeping my head up to spot the important features as I gallumphed back down. The course was very physical, not much flat, and much of the climbing was up or down very steep hillsides with a smattering of cliffs. 

I made a few more headless-chicken type mistakes, but felt like by the end of the race I was understanding what techniques were working well for me and which ones weren't. It was definitely a learning experience, and I was psyched to finish 12th, even with close to 6 minutes of errors. 

We headed out to another map on our way back to the cabins, to absorb more of the forest, and though I didn't have much energy left in my legs, the navigation came much more smoothly. The terrain here is so interesting and varied, it is a landscape I could really come to appreciate. 

Kvillebyns Klassiska

The next day was a long distance race, 9.6km straight-line. I expected that we would have a chance to practice execution on some of the route choice legs, and I was right. The major factor causing the choice were the long parallel lines of cliffs, thanks to the glaciation of the area. There were some gaps mapped between the cliffs, but it was hard sometimes to differentiate between a cliff and a not-cliff, because it was all steep, and often bare rock. Or moss-covered rock, and sometimes the moss would help with traction, and sometimes it would tear off and take you with it. It has also been a wet enough spring that the marshes were very slow, since each step would sink you in to some unknown depth; could be just the top of your shoe, could be your entire leg, and no good way to tell which it would be. The swamp monsters were hungry, on Sunday.

Click the map to see full-size map and route.

Luckily, I expected all the natural hazards. The point of me being here was to learn the fastest way to deal with them! It seems that course setters in Europe are much more willing to thrash the elite classes than course setters in the US. Maybe American course setters are [justifiably] afraid of getting sued. 

This one started a little rough, too. I was nearly late to my start, some combination of not having my shit together and not knowing where to go. Then I took two maps by mistake, and wasn't sure if I could just drop one, so ran back and dumped it back in the bin. Totally pro. The start triangle was at the top of a hill, and I could feel the four hours of training from yesterday, the short nights of sleep and redeye flight treatment, flooding my legs early. First control was a long leg, and it looked intimidating. Somewhere along the way, I found a surprise bog, and spent about a minute attempting to extract myself from there. The swamp monster had my foot and wouldn't let go! Eventually I got myself to the far side of the map and the first control, just to miss 20 seconds in the circle. As I said, not a great start. 

Improvement from there, as one might hope. The run felt pretty steady to me, but not fast. It was a combination of physical fatigue and navigational hesitation that kept me from really striding out, even on the [non-cliff] downhills, which is usually my forté. We had one very sketchy cliff-climb, on the way to #6, where I had to employ the map-in-mouth method of orienteering, to use both hands to rock climb. Just don't look down. But I was really enjoying myself running across the open hilltops, just cruising and loving this sport. 

Then came the cliffs on the way to #7. I am fairly positive I was at what was mapped as an opening between cliffs, but, it looked pretty cliffy to me. Things always look worse coming down than going up. I could hear the waterfall on one side, and I could see the treetops at my current elevation, which meant I only had to fall the length of one tree if things went badly. Hmm. One tree is actually kind of far from the ground. I was standing on top of a pile of very large, moss-covered boulders, with an uncrossable cliff above me and these boulders below me, and I knew that the boulders were big enough that once I dropped down to the top of the next boulder, there would be no returning. I couldn't tell from up here if I would be stuck on top of another cliff, or if there would be more boulders for me to use to "safely" descend. I'm not scared of heights, but I am a fully-functioning adult who is aware that actions have consequences, and I didn't really want to have the consequence of a broken leg on an inaccessible ledge with very little chance of being found. 

That was a somewhat dramatic build-up to say that I think my route choice cost me 2-3 minutes, and I got to the bottom just fine.

With a little more trail running for controls 8-13, I picked up the pace a bit, but it was too little too late, and I was also starting to make some fatigue-related mistakes. I finished the race feeling pretty whipped, but not totally dead, which maybe speaks to my general resilience. That is some tough terrain out there, and I definitely learned a lot by putting on a bib and trying to execute routes at speed. 

This is an extract from the Tvesteskogen map, where we trained before the Stromstadmedeln. Beautiful open hills, great visibility. Click for the full map.


Extract from the final training I did, on part of the World Cup middle distance race from last June. This was super fun. I'd just had a good cup of strong Swedish coffee, had a few hours after the race, and it was nice to have something in the forest at the controls, since they'd left up the wooden stands from the World Cup. I also found plenty of elephant trails from the runners then, which aids in both runnability and confidence, and boosted my enjoyment of the session immensely. 

The compound for this weekend, and August too if I make the team, is made up of adorable little cabins at the end of a fjord. Apparently that iconic red is the color it is thanks to the copper mines in northern Sweden. It's patriotic to use the paint from there, so you see lots and lots of rusty red houses, giving a splash of color to the otherwise bleak landscape. Maybe there will be more colors in the summer, but early April was cold and unforgiving with a constant mist.

This area of Sweden is beautiful. Rugged, misty, remote, and when you run through the forest it feels like the stuff of fairytales, and not necessarily the good ones. More like the Brothers Grimm version. Trolls waiting behind every rock and witches hiding in the thicker forests.

This sign either accurately depicts what happens if the ferry isn't there, or how I felt after all that running in my jet-lagged state. They needed a sign like this at several places in the long distance race!

All told, this was a great little trip. I learned a lot, trained a lot, and got to see some great friends. Now we'll see if I can practice what I think I need in my familiar forests, and carry this positive training momentum up through the team trials!