Discussion: US Team at World Cup races in Danmark

Hi Everyone,

Karen Williams, Randy Hall and I are in Danmark at the World cup/European Championship and doing well. Today is our first rest day, we have behind us the Qualification races for both the Long and Middle Distance events.

Unfortunatly none of us qualified for an A final in either race. Although this shouldnt be an excuse, it has proven to be very difficult to qualify and even some top international orienteerer havent qualified.

But with those races behind us we are concentrating on the B finals, preparing to be in the top half (at least!) and looking forward to the sprint. There will be a qualification race in the morning, so we get one more chance to qualify.

The rest of the week looks like this:
Tuesday, Middle final
Wednesday, Sprint quali and final
Thursday, rest day
Friday, Long final
Saturday, Relay (unfortunatly IOF rules do not allow mixed relay teams, so we will not be able to compete, or represent the US. Next time we need more team member!!)

If you want to see results and pictures, etc. the website is www.eoc2004.dk

I have given personal comments on my races in my training log.

I hope all is well in the US, we would love to hear from you!

with kind regard,
Sandra

Hey Sandra,
Good run on Sunday! Close to qualifying means it can be done with more work and more experience. And everything you learn now will help at WOC 2006. Good luck to all of you the rest of the week. Run hard, run smart.

Just browsed some of the the results & maps. Great work Sandra & Karen - looks like 10% or so from qualifying in one or two cases - A finals look possible!

And darn is everyone else fast at Sprints - with legs averging 40 seconds, down to as low as 10-20 seconds per leg it's pretty far from the experiences of nearly all American orienteering. You've got to run very fast AND lose no more than 2-3 seconds per control on average to even have a chance of making an A-final - what, what, ? 2-3 seconds per control? One route choice on the wrong-side of a building could cost more than that, not to mention the possibility of taking a moment to read the map and make a decision or, gasp, a wrong turn !

Keep running hard and keep those stories coming of just how hard we all need to train!

We now have 2 more races behind us. I personally have been running my races in rollercoaster stlye. My sprint quali was good, only missed the A final by a minute but also didnt make any mistakes, so it comes down to the fine detail Wyatt wrote about above, and of course running speed. My B final race was a disaster. I wrote my personal accounts of the races in my training diary, and I believe Karen is doing the same.

We all have one race left, tomorrow is the Long distance final. I am looking to finnish the week on a positive note.

Thanks for the support, and Wyatt is right, if we want to be competitive here at a World cup event, we better start training a whole lot harder. Its in my plans, how about yours??

with kind regards from Danmark,
Sandra

Looking at the splits, Sandra was only a couple
of high penalty mistakes away from being in
about 10th place or so. That is the nature
of sprint races, of course, but the point is
that the core execution speed is there, so it
was a much better race than it may appear in
the results.

With a little more practice and training, we,
as a team, should be able to get good results
in the sprint format. (Karen also mentioned
that the qualifier was her first sprint race).

So time for me to chime in on the events here at EOCs. It has been very steep competition indeed and it is certainly a good place to learn how to stay focused and keep your cool. That has been my biggest challenge this week, focusing and/or concentration at certain points during the races. We do not necessarily have this challenge in the US orienteering environment, because there is not the level of intensity to be found at the large international events like EOCs. Indeed, the racing scene is different as well at local and regional swedish orienteering meets, so I don't think the fact that we are the US has any factor to play. The best of the best are here, trying to edge each other out in very fast terrain, so clear thinking, smart running and the right route choices make all the difference. And, the top countries have 6 competitors running all the races (instead of just 3 at Worlds), so it is possible to say it is harder to qualify for finals here than it will be at Worlds! If anyone has been reading my personal accounts this week, you would see that I have had quite poor races in the qualifiers, but managed to get my head together a bit more for the finals. All my problems have been entirely with my own concentration levels while running, not from distrations from other runners, or being lead astray, or going to the wrong controls. Simply either letting my mind wander for a bit during the race, or trying to do too much (read ahead), and thus loose contact with the map. A good lesson for me to learn that I should simply concentrate on one leg at a time. Once I perfect that, perhaps I can move on to reading ahead. I have also been using a mantra to re-focus during races, which has been helping: compass, contact, concentration. When I find myself drifting a bit, I start chanting this in my head to get back into the game. While I am a bit disappointed with some of my races, they have been good lessons as well, and I will take them with me to further races, and I hope my thought may be useful to others as well. While we all should be training hard to be faster through the forests, I think even more important is to be clean. I think Sandra and I would have both qualified for a final this week if we had had clean runs (I the Long and she the sprint, and possibly the middle). A few seconds per km gained on increased running speed does not make up for 5 minutes of mistakes. But, that said, I am heading back to Sweden with a renewed motivation for some terrain running and hill workouts. Thanks to you all that are following the races and look for good things from us tomorrow (long B final)! We will run well!!

All the Best from Karen

thanks for the posts.

what you say about CLEAN runs will be even more important at WOC. I've been in Sweden for a week and learnt a few hard lessons.
Last Saturday I was caught by a Swede and followed him around just for the ride. He wasn't running particularly fast, but didn't make more than 20 seconds of "errors" over 14 controls in a classic. He was only six minutes down on the winner that day, less than I had lost in mistakes and hesitations on the first 6 controls.

I've been based in Uppsala the last few days. Here contact is vital. I've had to slow down my running speed to my orienteering speed.

Leg plans are important. Knowing what to expect is important. Ridges and marshes are the linear features. Boulders are two metres. Smaller stuff isn't mapped.

It's great.

Enjoy the rest of the week, and Oringen, and orienteer well. I have to skip it and head to Italy for three weeks.

btw, Who will be training in Sweden for the month prior to WOC?

ND: I live in Gothenburg now so I will be in Sweden (Gothenburg) training, and then plan to head to Vasteras for most of the week prior to WOC (assuming I am selected). If you need a place to crash in Gothenburg or want to do some training there (its hillier and a bit thicker than Vasteras), you are welcome. Have fun in Italy. This goes for anyone else too. Just shoot me an email and let me know when you want to swing by.

It has been fun watching the results every day. Looks like you are on track to good WOC results ... mostly because you are learning and keeping your attitudes in the right place! Good mantra, Karen. Does it work consistently? Anyway - well done all three of you. And well done on beating a few of the Brits :-) And to Sandy too - who I believe beat a two-time former World Champ in one race!