Training Log Archive: Arnold

Malaysia Orienteering Clinic “challenge”, Kuantan.
Country no.44

When planning my long weekend in Singapore I thought I might as well look to see if anything was going on in Malaysia at the same time. Turns out there wasn’t a race on, but there was an Orienteering “Clinic” for newcomers in Kuantan (west coast). I got in touch with the federation president who promptly invited me along and suggested I do one of the presentation slots. A bit of flight checking showed that it was possible to get there from Singapore very cheaply, albeit only for 18 hours on the ground.

So I confirm this with the president, who proceeds to make me the star attraction of the whole thing on Facebook, using some rather unflattering O photos.

Fast forward to today and me giving my “lecture” and of course it’s quite hard to know if people actually liked it (or even understood all of it), but they all clap politely and I even get a few questions.

At my suggestion they’d then arranged a short orienteering “challenge” although of the 14 control course I planned they only put out 5 because they were worried about time. Still, I got to do some mini coaching at the start with 60 keen runners, and then I ran the course myself - all 4:26 of it but enough to definitely count it as a country.

Lots of people wanted to take a photo with me afterwards which was rather fun but also mildly unsettling. Then straight off to the airport and back to Singapore.

The whole thing was slightly surreal but everyone was lovely and it was certainly an experience to be remembered!

Singapore Orienteering Series, Day Sprint

The map was a lot sketchier than last night, on a multilevel campus but they had only mapped “the ground level” - except that the are was quite hilly, so you often didn’t quite know which bit you were supposed to be on, or indeed if the mapped bit of “underpass” was at your level, above, or below!

They also put 40 controls out and said it was 5.6k based on a 1:5k map scale, but I only ran a little more than 3k and the scale was definitely at least 1:3000 if not 1:2500 (which I guess would explain it)

Plus today you had to run through some food courts, once you got over the “surely not” impulse in your head.

Jetlag was a little hardcore as the race started at 3:15am UK time, plus it was just a little bit warm again.

Got round ok although did not expect to be caught up by a visiting Australian chap named Grant, who was shifting but then got very confused by the mapping levels and finished behind. My SI download showed a control missing but I am 100% sure I was there so I’ll take it as a win anyway - the little things in life...

Today they still only had 15 open competitors but also 400+ schoolkids which was really great to see.

Organisation and planning were once again really good, so I suggested that they should host the World Sprint Orienteering Champs in 2024 or 2026. They have TONS of suitable areas in the city and a boatload of enthusiasm - so why not?

Run back via the “Southern Ridges trail” - well mostly run until I got so flipping hot I had to walk a bit. Nice views and pleased to have found a cool way back.

My running kit was so wet that when I came back to the hotel I managed to wring out of it an impressive quantity of sweat...

Warm-up run in Malaysia in the dark, just in case I didn’t get round to any running in the morning. Still hot.

Singapore Orienteering Series, Night Sprint
Country no. 43

The locals put on a great show with a super map and course in a housing estate where most of the buildings are on stilts, so that a lot of the map is “underpass”! Shame they don’t have many takers (yet.)

Took me a good few controls to get into it, also because they used mini controls which were hard to see in the dark. But ploughed on through without any major time loss. It was stupidly humid though, so how anyone does any reasonable training here I have no clue.

Slow jog back home. Would have preferred to walk but needed to get back for Claudia’s school theatre performance.

Half a park lap. Body still not quite right and it was really humid with the sun coming out just at the wrong time.

Actively slowed down a couple of times but still pretty (too) fast mpk - so perhaps that’s a good thing.