Final WOC photos

I've successfully departed Lausanne, and landed in London.  Lots of pre-olympic stuff going on here, but it's avoidable.  Now that I have internet I figured I could dump the rest of my photos from WOC.  Beautiful weather led to lots of photos!  

Sam on the big screen before her start in the long final.  The WOC organizers were pretty dumb, and did not make it easy for people to get from the spectator races to the WOC races, so there weren't nearly as many people in the arena as there had been last year.  

There was a gummybear vendor in the arena.  I bought a giant gummy frog.  He's on my knee, there.  He was delicious.

Annika Billstam, Sweden, through the arena in the long.

Boris got hold of my camera and took a lovely photo.

After the long distance race, we went shopping for banquet outfits.  The ladies found a nice outfit, the guys found some ladies jeans that they really liked.  shiny and tight.  this is what happens when you let Giacomo be the fashion consultant.  Above - can we wear these? Does my butt look big?

Oh yeah, we can wear these.  

Sandra modeling our banquet outfit.  

The zebra shoes fit right in with the nasty o' shoes.

Then on to relay-spectating!  Ali had a fantastic first leg, above she's on the jumbotron in the lead pack.

Hannah and I got WICKED excited about this.  We spent a lot of time sprinting around the stadium screaming loudly.

Ali, still with the lead pack!  Does she hear us when we scream at the screen?

Ali with the lead pack, coming through the stadium.

USA, tags off in 3rd!  In the world!

USA! USA! USA!

Sam, into the finish chute, anchoring us to 15th!  A pretty awesome run for these ladies.  Next year, I'm on that team.

GPS tracking on the big screen.  Cool stuff, let's you see who is making a mistake, where the race is won and lost.  There are lots of little lines because the controls are forked, so that you can't just blatantly follow.  

Team superstar supporters, Linda and Rick!  

Sandra, exhausted from the relay, before rallying for the beverage race.

Giacomo acquired some food, intelligently, pre-beverage race.  

Ross and a broken Australian giving us the rules (the gimps were in charge)

Finishing the last leg of the beverage race. 

Hopefully, there exist some photos of the ladies in their outfits, since we looked darn good (the guys just looked ridiculous).  But those photos may just got onto facebook, rather than here.  It was a fun week, inspiring and humbling and exciting, and I am totally psyched to prep for next year.  

WOC2012: The races

I came in to this year's World Championships far more prepared than last year.  I'd added another 2000 controls, 130 hours in terrain, 550 hours of physical training, and had just posted a PR in the 5k on the Northampton course (though not yet a lifetime PR.  That'll take a flat course).  Last year, I was a rookie, now I had some idea of what to expect.  In an ideal world, if everything went perfectly, I thought I had a shot at making one of the finals.  My other big goal was to be selected for the relay team.  I didn't make either of those goals, but somehow, I feel like I'm still coming away from these championships successful, or at the very least, hungry.

The first race for me was the long distance qualification.  The terrain was very different than anything I've experienced - I'm used to thick, rocky, slow terrain, where you can't move at full speed through the forest.  Although this map had plenty of nasty prickly stuff on it, you could move FAST if you avoided it.  All the running on hard-packed trails aggravated my achilles tendonitis badly, enough that by about halfway through it was a distraction from my navigation.  Amazing how hard it is to run fast when you're thinking about some painful body part.  I'd also paced myself poorly, starting too fast, and it was a struggle to push to the end.  I felt like I'd just done a 15k road race, and was completely and utterly wiped.  As it should be!  Although I raced a relatively clean race, I clearly didn't have the leg speed to compete with the top, and managed to outrun my brain once or twice - I estimate I lost maybe 6 minutes to errors.  That's a lot of time over an hour race.  A perfect race would have gotten me closer to the top 15, but I'm not quite there.  Yet.

The map from the Long qualification race.

Photo: WorldofO.com.  Game face!

The following day was the qualification for the middle distance.  A little desperate to make my achilles hurt less, I spent a while looking up youtube videos of how to use kinesio tape to help alleviate achilles pain.  I found two scientific studies online, one of which says kinesio tape doesn't do squat, the other saying it totally works.  I decided to believe the one that told me it worked, and taped up my heel and calf.  Combined with painkillers, my heel was fine through the race, and I left the tape on for a few days.  I now declare it to be magic tape, as my achilles pain faded the longer I wore the tape, despite continuing to run hard races.  I will have to acquire some of this magic tape at home - nothing better than a crutch to let you train more than you should on an injury!  (I'm being sarcastic.  I hope).  

So, leg all taped up in pretty colors, I prepared for the middle distance.  More technical terrain than the long, with more rocks and low-visibility forests, I was quite excited!  Too excited.  This race was a disaster.  I started well, but the crucial mistake came on the way to #2, when I tried to compensate for a hesitant start by running faster, but did it in the wrong direction, and proceeded to make a massive mistake, compounding the mistake with a panicked, idiotic recovery.  Luckily, I was able to put that control behind me and out of my mind, and followed it with a string of really good controls.  And then I made another mistake, this time with a parallel error.  Recovered, and then another mistake, bad compass work from my attackpoint.  My spirit was broken, by then.  There was no more point lying to myself; one mistake maybe you can recover from, three mistakes, plus a race full of nervous bobbles, there is no coming back.  It was disappointing to have such a disaster of a race, one of the worst races I've had in at least a year, but I know you can't necessarily expect to have your best races on the day it counts.  Not like that knowledge lessens the sting.  

Middle distance qualification map.

photos: WorldofO.com.

In to the control...

punch!  (would be such a better photo if the control were in the frame)

And out!

With no finals to run, and having taken myself out of the relay with my inconsistency, the week became more of a training week for me.  The public spectator races being run in conjunction with WOC were open to all, and I threw myself into the orienteering as though that could somehow make my past races better.  Running in the elite class of the open races, the competition was still stiff!  Spectating the WOC final races was also thrilling, and the relay day was the ultimate excitement, when Ali finished her first leg in 3rd place!  Sandra did a great job on the second leg, and I was happy to see her there in her last WOC.  But I look forward to the day that I can run at a level to keep our relay up in the lead pack!  I know what I need to do, and I'll keep hammering at those process goals and see where next year can bring me.  Now on to the next adventure!

WOC in photos

I'm currently in Switzerland, at the World Orienteering Championships.  I've been here all week, but internet has been slow enough at our hostel that I haven't posted anything, since I'm spoiled by fast internets at home.  I finally got a bunch of photos to load, and those are below.  I'll write up the races in a bit - executive summary is one good race, one disaster race, and I was not selected for the US relay team.  I just returned from the relay, where Ali led our team into 3rd (3rd!!!!  holy shit!!!), followed by a super solid run by Sandra and a great finish by Sam to bring our ladies home in 15th, which I think is our best ever finish!  I was super pumped to be a spectator and watch that finish.  I'll post those photos later, since posting photos around here is a lesson in patience.  In the mean time... enjoy!

Sprint final arena - beautiful weather, beautiful backdrop of the oldtown of Lausanne behind the massive jumbotron.

Packed stadium, and more people all over the rest of the arena.

This dude, hiding under the jacket, controls the octocopter, which basically looked like a flying erector set with a video camera dangling below it.

More tech dudes, hiding under the stadium seating.  Ed asked for lots of photos, so I tried to take photos he'd appreciate =).

Cutest little South African baby ever.  The flag-sling worked really well to move her over obstacles.

GPS tracking!

Matthias Müller has his own fanclub.  So cool!  

Lake Geneva

The Swiss team dominated the sprint.  They all happened to be called Matthias.  Crazy!  

Opening ceremonies had tap dancers holding orienteering flags.  Cool.

At the opening ceremonies, they presented the awards from a kids race that had happened earlier in the day.  No wonder there is a strong orienteering community in Switzerland!  Imagine doing a race and getting your result announced at the WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS!  So cool.

This is a map that is 125m long, from an orienteering relay that crossed all of Switzerland.  This was really cool.

Before the first race!  

Magic tape.  I decided to try out kinesio taping to see if it would make my achilles feel better, after spending some painful hours watching youtube videos (did I mention the internets are slow?).  I call it magic tape because the placebo effect totally worked, and I could run again.  Need to acquire some of this magic tape.

Cute lil' cow at the quarantine area.

Team USA!!

At the middle final arena.  Another gorgeous day.

Middle arena

Arena from the adventure day.  The Swiss 5-Day competition happened in conjunction with WOC, so that the spectators have something to run.  Since I didn't make any finals, I got to run in the spectator races, and stage 4 was a real adventure.  It involved driving way up the valley beyond Montreux, up the side of the valley wall, and then a cog railway up to the top of the pass.  The course itself was hellacious, involving plenty of gratuitous climb, and I had a pretty epic bonk.  More on that later, maybe.  

After our adventure race, a bunch of us hiked down to a gorgeous lake, which, being in Switzerland, naturally had a cafe by its shores.

chilly!

I'll post relay photos and long distance final shots later.  It's been fun, but now it's time to go get banquet-ified.  

Northampton 5k race

I wanted to do one more 5k race before heading to Switzerland, and chose to do the Northampton 5k a week ago last Tuesday, on a hot, but dry, day.  I do hope to break 20 on that course, but honestly, I'd be happy with anything faster than the previous one, which was a 20:39.  I decided on a new plan, to start a little slower down the first hill in hopes of having fresher legs, but all that did was to make me breathe a lot of dust and dry out my throat.  Oops.  Passed all those people on the downhill, anyway.  Downhills are fun!

My legs were feeling a bit heavy and sluggish on the flats, but I felt better and better on the hills, which was pretty cool.  I began to reel in some fast starters by mile 2, though usually I'm the one being reeled in, but I was also starting to hurt by mile 2.  I tried to remember to keep my arms relaxed and swinging, and brainwash myself into bad-ass-ness, and that got me up the big hill beginning mile 3.  I heard some breathing bearing down on me as I crested the hill, and I couldn't hold off this unseen attacker, he caught me a short while further, cheering, "go, Alison's teammate!"  I was wearing a US orienteering singlet, which I suppose gives it away.

James passing me gave me a brief spurt of energy, which quickly faded, but not before I could begin to brainwash myself into toughness again.  I put in a surge up the last little hill, screaming at myself "NOW is when you find out how bad you want it!! You want this!"  And over and over and over - "I want this! I want this!" It may have been a lie - hell, this is just a Tuesday night race - but my brain is dumb enough to believe what I tell it, and I pushed that last mile hard enough to break my PR on that course by 18 seconds.  I usually run the last mile in 7:10+, this time, I was 6:54.  I'll take it.  Mental toughness is something you have to practice, and it feels good to have it working for you.  I ended up 4th overall, in 20:22, mostly because all the fast people didn't feel like showing up, but that was in the money!  First time I've ever won money at a running event, what a pleasant surprise!

And then because my life is crazy, I went from there to VT for the 4th, then back to work for a day, then back to VT, then down to Baldwin Hill to do some orienteering, then on to Winchendon for the CSU ski camp, where I am right now.  Tomorrow, I leave for Switzerland.  I plan to ignore the fact that I've felt tired ever since this 5k, and brainwash myself into feeling like a bad-ass again.  Boo-yah!

Middle distance race sim

With my departure for WOC fairly imminent, and no orienteering races scheduled, if I wanted a race effort, I had to make up my own race.  I decided to run a middle distance race from the A-meet that CSU held in 2010, on the west side of the Fells.  I had run the women's semi-final/qualifier only that day; my knee had been bugging me so I remember consciously deciding not to run the final.  At some healthier point, I'd gone back to run the final, which I'm sure was fun, but this time round I wanted to run something I hadn't seen before, so I ran the men's qualifier.  At the height of summer, the forest looks a lot different than it does in October, so I definitely expected slightly slower times than the boys had run in a more open terrain.  But the object was to do the full preparation of a race, attack the course hard, and run it cleanly and smoothly.  You want confidence-building workouts before the big one, not necessarily the super hard technical stuff.

I arrived at the Fells around 1:30pm, and it was 98 degrees.  Even in the shade, that's hot.  Did a good warmup, and mentally focused myself.  Then off I went!  

Right off the bat, I made an error.  My goal for the race was to have good solid attackpoints, and to keep my head up and looking around as I ran.  On the trail to 1, I was reading ahead on the map, and totally lost contact.  When I looked up again, I was suddenly quite worried that I'd missed my attackpoint, and so, not really knowing where I was, I dashed off the trail and into the woods... too soon.  It took me an extra two minutes to find my way to #1, which is really just embarrassing.  You want to nail the first control, to set the mood for the course.  I made a similar mistake again to 9 - no attackpoint off the trail, and then a long mistake wandering in the woods looking for the right feature.  D'oh!

1 and 9 aside, I did make some other mistakes, the worst of which was probably heading down the wrong trail from 7-8.  The Fells has so many trails that you want to take advantage of them when you can, but you have to make super duper sure that you're on the right trail, before dashing off.  Overall, though, I felt that I was moving very well through the woods, at least when I was going in the right direction.  An estimated 4:15-5min lost on that course, which isn't all that acceptable in a middle distance race.  I have to do better than that.  But I can't help but feel good about the training, and I think this is great - I need to keep that positive, aggressive feeling!  

I added my splits to the results, just so I could see where I stood.  A fairly consistent 16th-17th place for most splits except where I made mistakes, ended up 19th out of 29 dudes who all had faster conditions.  Not too bad, but definitely some room for improvement.  

Weeknight training

With the park-o season wrapping up, CSU runners still need to train!  Tonight we ran two sprints, in Newton, on maps that Ed just made last weekend.  I think he spent two days and delivered two maps - that's pretty good for a weekend's work!  We had pretty good attendance, 11 runners came to do the two sprints, and followed it up with dinner at our place.  All training should be followed with food, I think.

It felt awesome to really push the pace.  I felt like I was just rolling through the course; definitely tired legs from yesterday's trail tempo workout with the juniors, but I have two qualifiers in a row at WOC coming up pretty soon, so it's good to push the tiredness!  The maps are of pretty small areas, but Ed set good courses, and because the terrain was so open and fast, I definitely outran my brain more than once.  That's the goal!


The first sprint was at the Newton City Playground, which had some really interesting little route choice options.  I lost precious seconds from 4-5 going north (d'oh!), and should have thought to take the right-hand route from 5-6, saving even more seconds.  Just because I'm not racing the sprint at WOC doesn't mean I can't run good sprints!  Another mistake at 8 when I went up the wrong trail, and then some confusion at 13, but overall, quite a good run.




Once everyone had finished up, we jogged over to Newton City Hall, for the second pain-fest of the evening.  This one, I thought that the stupid loop around the lake was just gratuitous running, but it turns out it was enough to make me skip a control!  Not acceptable.  I never went to 7, didn't even see it.  Booo.  It was good to have the course finish with some fast open running, because I had to dig deep to try and keep moving.  I averaged 4:45/km on this course, which doesn't sound super fast, but that's pretty good for including all the accelerations at controls and the mistake at 2!  Despite the mispunch, I feel pretty good about this sprint, too.

Now I'm properly wiped.  Time for some more technical training in the forests, and to recover a bit.  Sometimes I love the feeling of tired legs a little too much...