Discussion: Thoughts from back home

So far I haven't managed to either stay up late enough or get up early enough to watch the online coverage of the WOC races that takes place here at around 3 to 5 am. So when I do get up, the first thing to do is to check the results, holding my breath, please, please, let them have had good runs. And please somebody qualify, which is tougher than in Japan last year because the fields this time are bigger/deeper.

So what a pleasure this morning to see Hilly and Sam and Louise all through to the final this afternoon, and also good runs by Sandra and Boris, both just missing. Congratulations to all of them. If you have been following their training, you know that they have all been putting in a lot of work in preparation. And that makes a difference.

I am sure I am not alone in enjoying their success, and in hoping that they run their best this afternoon in the finals.

I am also sure I am not alone is the admiration I have for both North American teams, each and every member of them, plus all the leaders and helpers -- they are representing us well. It's fun/interesting to read the various reports from team members and supporters. And think how sweet it must be for Jeff and Judy to see both their daughters make the Sprint Final.

It is also a reminder of just how good the best are and how tough the competition is. You just have to keep working and progress will come.

On a separate issue, congrats again to Hilly, Sam, and Louise, this time for the 50 bonus points each will earn in the next update of the Sprint Series standings!

And, in trying to compare how hard it is to qualify for the Finals vs. recent history (not the ancient history, when the (ex-)Soviets fielded one or no teams instead of six), remember that the size of the Finals was reduced from 60 to 51 in 2001 to 45 in 2005. There haven't been two US qualifiers in a WOC Final since 1997.

Maybe it's too early to say this, but: Sprint Series—>good Sprint results?

Maybe we need to get a Middle Series started.

It's hard to imagine that the sprint series has been anything but beneficial to results in that discipline and orienteering as a whole. Some purists may bemoan the shift in focus away from technical woods orienteering, but I think that increased interest in sprints will enevitably lead to increased interest in middle. Jumping right into classic (or long) distance is tough and nobody likes to lose a race by 2 hours.

In Canada, there haven't been quite as many sprints in the series until recently, but Louise's Vancouver has been focusing a lot on sprint maps and sprint training...both Vancouver and Calgary have held sprint training camps, and made several sprint maps each. Maybe not surprising that she's the one from Canada to make the Sprint Final.

A middle series would be great. Canada has switched to Sprint/Middle/Long format for most big events, so we get them here at our A meets, but a series would put more focus on them. (It actually feels kind of odd now going to Colorado for a two day Classic US Champs...kind of have to plan to throttle back to save enough for the second day.)

Well, that's if you go for two days. There is a total of ten days and it'll be tough going for all of them.

I actually thought Samantha had a better chance at the longQ than the sprint. The sprint race is so dependent on every little move you make. I thought Hill's best shot was the sprint, never would think she would out qualify her sister. But she has trained just as hard , well harder, with all the bike and erging time she has done.
I like the idea of having A meets with Mid and classic races such as the EMPO/CNYO meet this spring.

This is real achievement by Hillary, Sam, and Louise! Go girls! My daughter Masha was very happy to see them in the final. Role models for our new generation!

I just hope that men would put as much training and effort into WOC preparation.

I think that last statement is a little unfair to Boris, who clearly prepped well, but just came up a bit short.

I agree with Jim - a Middle series would be wicked awesome.

Sergey, I think the men's team cannot be blamed for a lack of preparation or training, as all of us have worked very hard to get here and perform the best we can. Sometimes, there are things that affect our results that are beyond our control. It is difficult to blame Eric for having Mike Smith run into him and send him to the hospital during the Sprint qualifier. No matter how much you train or how well you prepare, that is one of those accidents no one can anticipate!

I think this is just a sign that north-american women are getting a lot stronger. We've had strong men around since the late 80's (maybe before but that's starting to be too far for me to know!) but for the women, after Denise deMonte and Susan Budge and that group, Pam has been pretty much on her own at the international level. So it's awesome to see that happening. I think we should celebrate the improvement of the women rather than pick on the men! My 2 cents.

The rhetorical question about NA man's perfomance remains open: who can make 10k road run under 32min?

Best WOC results:
Canada—Ted de St. Croix, 10th, 1985; Sandy H-J, 9th, 2005
USA—Eric Weyman, 28th, 1985; Samantha Saeger, 29th, 2006

Andrew: Samantha may be getting pretty close to your desired time, gender adjusted.

No question, we ALL need to be able to run faster to produce better results and have qualification be an "expectation" rather than a "hope".

Just how much faster do we need to go? Hard to say. Comparing road racing and orienteering is a little bit akin to comparing speed skating with ice hockey. Sure, skating faster is very helpful in ice hockey - but there are an awful lot of other skills that are important in ice hockey....

Your 32 minutes might be roughly right, but what we really need is fitness in terrain, and that doesn't translate directly into road or track times. In fact, a very large proportion of Scandinavian orienteers have no idea what their 10K time is, as most of them have never (or hardly ever) run one.

I for one do hope to be able to spend more time and energy on improving running speed and endurance - and in the short term am hoping to get closer to a 34 min 10K at least (my PB is in and around there). But as Holger (and many other top elite orienteers for that matter) says - don't neglect your technical and mental training!

Over the years, North American teams at the WOCs have had some sub-32 10K runners. The ones that come immediately to mind are Mike Fellows (WOC 2001) who ran 31:20 and Monster Mitch Bentley (a long time ago) who ran sub-30. Currently, I'm not sure any of the WOC team have run that fast.

I think most would agree that fitness for a road/trail run is an excellent predictor of fitness in terrain. Not a 100% predictor, but well correlated.

It would not seem optimal to target one's physical training for orienteering solely at achieving a particular running result, but to use a test run as a gauge of terrain fitness only seems reasonable.

Well, in a sprint like the one 2 days ago, running fast sure comes in handy!
I remember watching the women from China last year in Japan, and it was unreal how fast they could run! ONe of them was a silver medallist from the Sidney olympics at the 10 000m. Yep, a sub 32 10K female runner. It was quite something to watch! It made the fast scandinavians look like they were out for a stroll.

As a Anglo/American I'll chime in here to say that I don't think the UK men's team is very much faster over 10k than the US men's team.
They do have more opportunities to train on good maps though, and the top guys (though I only really know Jaime and Jon) have been great orienteers since they were 13 or so, and have been living and breathing competitive orienteering in Scandinavia for several years.
My point is it's not just the training in terrain, it's competing consistently against the best in the world that really helps.
Of course there are occasional superstars like Hanny but she's perhaps the exception that proves the rule.

so, what would be proposal for the rest of the world, who cant breath competetive air of scandinavia and were not in the business at the age of 13?

>I don't think the UK men's team is very much faster over 10k than the US men's team.

They are.

Well, looking at the sprint qualification results and split times, it seems that just about all of the North American men were running fast enough to qualify for the final, but doomed themselves with mistakes. Granted, one should look beyond just qualifying for the finals, but that is a first step in the right direction, and it does seem that we are fast enough to do it in the sprint, but just need to work on the mental and technical side of things. Obviously, we still need to improve our fitness, but i think we are further behind the rest of the world in technical skills and terrain fitness than in road running speed. Additionally, I have not run a road 10km in sixteen years, but I am pretty sure I cannot now, and never will be able to, run a sub-32 minute 10km. Should i just not bother orienteering any more?

I certainly can't run a 10km race in 32 minutes. My pb time over 5km is 15:23 which I ran this spring. In 2001 I ran it in 16:51 and back than I would have never believed to run the 5km under 15:30.
I don't think that the difference is a result of track and field improvement, but an improvement of general running fitness.
Daniel Hubmann was the fastest of the team this year and ran the 5k in 14:56 and David Schneider in 14:59

Well Boris, you're obviously in pretty good company in the "can't run a 10K under 32 minutes" club.

You might want to add another famous, multiple World Orienteering Champion to that club - Jorgen Rostrup, whose best guess at a 10K time is reported to be in the 35-36 minute range....

Clearly, we DO need to work on our fitness - orienteering demands fast running _in_addition_to_ quick decision-making and accurate navigation. But Holger has pointed out repeatedly that most of us, although decent navigators, still lose more time in errors and hesitation in a race than in sheer running speed.

If running speed was everything, we may as well all learn the Chinese national anthem right now and get on with it.

But if Jorgen Rostrup can win repeated World Championships in multiple disciplines despite not being able to beat me in a road 10K, then I'm not giving up on orienteering just yet....

Much room for improvement in just about every aspect of my orienteering, of course - but we'll chip away at it.

For the record, the best US JWOC result:

Samantha Saeger, 8th in the classic distance (7.7 km), 1999, Bulgaria

Winning time was 52:57. Sam was 56:07. She beat all the Norwegian and Swedish women in that race.

I thought a comment on Holger HJ's web site a few months back was interesting (or maybe he mentioned it when he was in Hamilton). Anyway he mentioned that he has been running a woods test run faster and faster the last few years as he increased his training hours but believes that if he was to run a 3000m on a track that it would be slower than a few years ago. 'nuff said - shows the important specificity of terrain running.

The last three years, North America has put 9 into the finals out of 108 chances (3 WOCs x 3 races x 6 per race x 2 countries). Not great. But what is interesting is that 7 of the 9 were women and 6 of those 9 were sprint (2 middle, 1 long).

6 out of 36 for the sprint sounds (and is) a lot better than 9 out of 108. That success rate will only get better.

And if Japan had had a real sprint (grrrrrr), those numbers would look even better. Nope, she's not over it yet ;-)

Stop putting 5 hour/week training and start doing 10-12 hour weeks. Results will show in as less as couple years. Look at Boris as a role model!

There is no doubt that there is direct correlation between running speed and orienteering results. Especially it is true for sprint discipline. To win you have to be able to run fast.

I am more than sure that any in top 50 in IOF men ranking are capable to run sub-32 10K with proper training. This is not the goal.

Training in woods is our bread and butter. Working on increasing your speed in par with building technical confidence is direct route to the success. The one can not do it with low volume training. Please start training properly! We have knowledgable coaches here in the USA who can help you in achieving your goals.

And what makes you so sure that we train 5h/wk Sergey? Just curious...

... but Mr Daniels says Cheese is really damn close.

I think that instead of a numerical road-race criterion, a good sense of being at, or close to, world-level orienteering-specific running fitness can be gleaned from mass-started races (Jukola, one-person relays, etc.) The lead "train" in those usually consists of 50+ runners. Once North American runners can comfortably hang with the train (NOTE I AM NOT ADVOCATING THIS AS A GOAL TO TRAIN FOR, only as a test), I'd say mission accomplished (THAT OF PHYSICAL TRAINING). I think British runners are there, but of North Americans, only Samantha may be.

It doesn't seem Marc would have been able to pull along with the train at his 2001 fitness levels...

A couple of points (though it seems unlikely that much further argument will get around the fact that we do all seem to agree on the principle that more training and faster legs are necessary for further improvement....):

1) not only Samantha, but Sandy HJ (when healthy) can run at the speed of the leading pack in major Scandinavian relays. Possibly others as well - we'll soon see.

2) in WOC 97, Canada did come in with the leading pack (first among English-speaking countries, ahead of host Norway by a few minutes, and alongside defending champs Switzerland, and eventual winners Denmark)....

That was me running, and my 10K time at that point was about 35:50.... I can't replicate that feat at the moment, but I hope to be able to again within a few years. It's do-able, and with enough training and willingness to make some sacrifices along the way, both Canada and USA could possibly field teams of 3 people who are able to do that.

OK, enough of this.

Train on, everyone - whatever your goals may be.

I was actually thinking about this very subject a couple weeks ago when reading a training article in O Today.

It seems to me that one big difference between North American orienteers and Europeans might be the frequency and opportunity of running through terrain. Many North Americans have to drive a fair ways to reach woods, and lots only get an off-trail run in by going to O events. (I doubt the latter applies to the best North Americans, but I think the former may be an issue?) The nordic countries have better access to the woods, and the Brits seem to train in Scandinavia or Scotland or the Lakes district.

The fact that the only finalists were in the sprint (and that a couple of them did well in the final) seems consistent with the idea that our teams are closer to the top in park and trail running than in woods running.

If specificity matters, maybe it's worth figuring out ways to get relevant workouts in in the city? (Find little patches of bush in the city and do intervals until the cops come (then outrun them)? Set up obstacle courses? Run places where loose rock is used to shore up a riverbank or embankment? Get your hill training group to use a natural hillside? Find rock faces to practice jumping off? Fences/logs/ditches/marshes?)

Just a thought and observation. Not sure how relevant it is to our very best, but it does seem like a difference, having lived both places.

I talked to Novikov about this specifically, in 2004. He felt that it was not as important to spend as much time as possible running in terrain, as it was to spend time running, period.

As to lack of access to off-trail—couldn't be less true, at least if you live in a major American city. For those who (by choice) live in the suburbs planted on newly claimed cornfield land, that might be true. But last time I checked, you could run off-trail in Forest Park, Queens; Joaquin Miller, Oakland and Presidio, San Francisco; the southwest preserves, Chicago; lots of parks in Boston, some in DC. All accessible by public transit, so certainly not "too far". None of those are prime O-terrain like you would get out of your doorstep in Espoo, but all of those settings are certainly better than "finding little patches of bush" and rock.

No excuses!

Wil—certainly, I should have included Sandy along with Samantha.

Here are the houses I lived in until moving to the US to go to college:

Age: Distance to major forest:
0-6 1km (Seljord, Norway)
6-10 100m (Seljord, Norway)
10-11 500m (Ringsaker, Norway)
11-17 20m (Moelv, Norway)
17-19 600m (Duino, Italy)

The place I lived from age 11-17 was on an orienteering map, and the forest was continuous to the Russian Taiga, intersected by a few roads of course.

The map was part of the Turorientering program, meaning permanent courses from May through September. I used these maps to do long runs and interval work-outs in the terrain.

To Barbie,

Just look at the AP logs by most of the NA elites. It is on average 5-7 hrs/week.

There are notable exceptions, of course. For example, Swampfox, BorisGr, and Hammer. We all know their stature. Boris (my hero) by virtue of increasing volume and quality of his training showed the direct correlation between training and results.

Some Hamilton Orienteers who live on maps:
Hammer
Sudden
Mr. Pither (5 min jog)
Justine Scheck (if she lives in residence at uni)
Nev-Monster (when I'm at my mom's)
Ron Lowry used to as well, before he moved to the mountains.
In Ottawa that produced Brian Graham and Cherie Mahoney (A Final Long 03) it's 20 minute drive to unlimited woods that will make you tough, mean and strong. It's going to make Emily Kemp even faster in the future.

and 5-7 hours a week is a very good timing (add 1+hour for changing and shower, plus driving to place) on the top of 40+ hours workweek. has to be very good understanding from your family members about your hobby...

Well If we are talking elite level orienteering, we should not use it in the same sentence as hobby.
I am also having a tough time keeping 3 -4 hours of excercises a week :(, but again I am not aiming or comparing with the elite level too.
Now if your goals are aiming for elite level, there should be a pretty good understanding from the people around you that this is not a hobby or even a balanced live goal. It is a dedication spanning over years.

Well, if you want to compete on an international level, orienteering is probably more than just a hobby...

I work out 5 hours per week, and I do this with an understanding that it is not going to make me a world class orienteerer... But if that were my goal, I would definitely try to live on a map again. :)

Thoughts from a different home.

Seeing you mentioned Hanny, the following from an interview last year might shed light on 5 hours of training and being an 'exception'.

--------------------------------
(Begin quote)

How do you get time for everything and what about resting?

I think I am just incredibly organised with my time. I think it all comes back to the sacrifices. I get everything done that needs doing first and then I play. If you do the work and then play you will never have any problems. And I love to be busy. The more you do the more experiences you have in life. I believe that ultimately this will make me a better person, she says.

She loves training and the feeling of returning home after a big day of exercise - that pure, painful satisfaction. During last summer (last winter in Europe) the girl from the island of Tasmania trained for a mountain ultra marathon of 82 km and put in huge numbers of kilometres in training.

- I think that it was this huge base fitness from the summer that helped me so much in Japan. Since the race in February, I have been largely concentrating on developing my speed and speed endurance. I ran every morning for 30+ minutes and then every afternoon I went training with a road running team or did interval training. On weekends, I would complete a 2 hour + run and I also tried to include an orienteering run. Before JWOC and WOC, I was covering about 125 km a week. I guess it equates to about 2hours+ a day, she says.
(end quote)
--------------

My own daughter has run against Hanny in Australia since Hanny appeared on the scene out of the blue. From the start it was clear Hanny was in a league of her own. I believe this is because she is exceptional in at least three ways:

* Obviously great genetics for speed and endurance. Not sure what her 10k time would be, but she came second in the 82k overland track race last year against all comers, male and female. I think you need these genetics to get into a WOC final.

* Totally focussed dedication to tasks at hand, despite some very serious disturbances over the past year. I doubt few athletes have this capacity to focus on the demands of training. BTW, she is also studying medicine, so that takes a bit of time as well. As a psychologist I would muse that it takes a certain personality to manage your life with this much to juggle.

* A fantatstic genetic ability to absorb this training load without breaking down. This last capacity is crucial. Dedication can bring you down. Australia's other great hope who has recently emerged from junior ranks is Julian Dent. He dominated his junior years in Australia almost to the same extent as Hanny did. But Julian missed this year's WOC because of serious shin splint problems.
http://www.orienteering.asn.au/news/autumn2006news...
This brings down many who try and emulate Hanny's training regime.

"Please start training properly! We have knowledgable coaches here in the USA who can help you in achieving your goals."
We do? I think lack of coaching for O is one of the top reasons we don't do as well as we would like.
It may be true, but I think to only some extent, does genetics put you on the podium. Unfortunately it can convince you not to try.
Try training as Hanny or Mark do and then you can blame Mom and Dad if you don't make the podium.

If training hours were all it took, I'd be on the national team.

So I think we can all agree that it takes training hours, dedication, motivation, talent, good genes, access to maps and races, and a bit of love and Nestle Quick.
How's that for a conclusion?

The 5-7 hour total doesn't bother me as much as the content and quality I see when browsing training logs, which I rarely do.

Coaching? The info is out there. Even on Attackpoint alone, there is plenty of the "right stuff" being said, and I think the average orienteer is plenty bright enough to sift out the "other stuff", as long as they are motivated enough to give honest appraisals.

Even for orienteers who have coaches at their side, the most important coach is within.

Medal winners who claim to be slower than 32min for 10k? Sorry, this is very insincere, to put it politely, not even close, if they put in a fraction of their O effort into getting a representational time.

My half marathon PR(1:10:23) puts me right on "Cheese's" conversion table (link above). I completely agree with the specificity principle for soft Nordic forests, which I never adjusted well to, but I think my running in firm forests, especially stoney firm forests (HVO land), was equal to my road racing. My mistake time, still left me well short of the top performances, about the same % behind the best marathoners as the best orienteers. The top guys are in a different cardiovascular league.

conclusion? my coach in track and field didnt care about abilities, his favorite fraze was "this person made it to olimpics, so this is an example for you which you must follow". period.

after 10 years of training i was able to run 100m at 11.0 and 200s at 22.6, which isnt so bad having in mind that i started to run because of weak health and never was considered as perspective runner (for 10k equivalent time would be our 32 min. if such comparisition is possible, at least in russian t&f qualification this times for 200m and 10k assumes the same rank).

but it takes time, efforts, and motivation to have results. talent and good genes are absolutly a must have component for international level.

5 hours is my goal for a week and I don't often make it. While not even approaching a 10 k time that starts with a 3 I have improved my endurance and speed on all terrain steadily over the last few years not from volume but from quality and from being able to take the advice of those who know more than I do. I look forward to the days when I can do 10 hours of quality training a week and still do my job, be a parent and get a decent sleep each night.

"it takes training hours, dedication, motivation, talent, good genes, access to maps and races, and a bit of love and Nestle Quick."
So, what is the point? What are we saying we lack?. Eric disagrees that we need coaching, others say it's lack of training hours, or dedication, or bad genes.
We have a list of several factors. But we seem to be saying we cannot do anything about them. Are we just waiting for the motivated , genetically superior, dedicated, person who lives on an O map and can travel to lots of races to get the USA onto the medal stand? If so, then many of us will not live to see the day.
I'm going out and getting a case of Nestle Quik for Sam Hill and I. And I do Love 'em.

Let's be clear about which "Eric" doesn't think we need coaches. I think having some decent (not world-class, just people who get it) coaches at the elementary/secondary level is the single biggest improvement we could make in the development of national class runners.

EricW is right that once a general level of competence is achieved, the resources are there to improve. The problem is that the pool of athletes is so small by that point, that the chances of finding one with world-class potential is dimisnished. Look at the sports that the US is competitive in. There are literally THOUSANDS of coaches developing 5-10 year olds. Most of the coaches are mediocre and most of the athletes don't play beyond early teens, but because so many kids are getting instruction, the ones who have the motivation can move on to more comprehensive programs in high school and college.

This situation more or less exists in the Nordic countries where local O-clubs take a real interest in developing juniors. It doesn't exist in the US and, frankly, never will. We have several hundred O-clubs and a population of nearly 300 million. That ratio simply doesn't reach enough kids. The next best thing is to do what we're doing - share information and support with the small pool of juniors that does exist and give them a hearty applause when they manage to put in a decent performance.

Is there a good reason why these discussions about how we are not good enough to accomplish anything always seem to pop up DURING WOC, while we are still here in Denmark trying to do our best, and not afterwards when we can happily analyze our performance and talk about possible improvements for the future?

Boris, you are absolutely right. The same thing happened last year, I remember very well. It is very sad that instead of celebrating how well you guys are doing people are trying to figure out why you are not doing any better.
Some people also seem to forget that a lot of athletes read AP and when you have a few races to come and you see that your own country is wondering why you are doing so bad, well, that's the best way to ruin your next race.
THank you for raising that subject. I hope your point gets across.
Like I said earlier, a bit of love and a bit of Nestle Quick dammit!

Ah come on Boris, after all the hard work of training, are these comments on Attackpoint going to affect your race? I can't read Norwegian, but I'm thinking there were much worse comments on their websites after the sprint and Holger ran pretty okay today.
Wearing a national team uniform should be a bulls-eye for others and there should always be someone out there trying to train harder and replace you next year.

Yes, I've been reading this with some dismay. This thread started out as a really nice expression of admiration and support from Peter and took a wrong turn with an ill-advised remark that jumped to a conclusion that, because the women had done well, the men hadn't prepared as well. They're not competing against each other, so how can you draw that conclusion? Only one person can win a race and that doesn't mean that everyone else in the race didn't prepare or do their best. I think they've done a great job representing us and I'm proud of them. I know for certain that Clem and Eddie have taken this very seriously and done all they could to train for it, and I'm sure the same is true for Boris, Eric and James. We're in a sport that most people in the US have never even heard of, so we are their only base of support and as such should be doing more to encourage them.

"Wearing a national team uniform should be a bulls-eye for others and there should always be someone out there trying to train harder and replace you next year."

good point - almost an answer to question about conclusion. exactly what divides sport and physical education.

"We have several hundred O-clubs and a population of nearly 300 million. That ratio simply doesn't reach enough kids."

Looking at the USOF web site, I see 61 clubs, at least one of which only puts on rogaines and adventure races. I know Canada doesn't have enough clubs to justify "several hundred". Perhaps if we count every school team and JROTC group we might make the number. Call me crazy, but I think that if we had five or more times as many O clubs, meaning organisations that produce and maintain orienteering maps and regularly put on events, it would make a significant difference in the international results of North Americans.

Yes, but so would a top-heavy program (see France). We've had this discussion before (at a time farther removed from a WOC).

About 10 years ago, Australia, France, and the US had comparable federation sizes, budgets, numbers of maps, and total O-starts/year. It seems that during the time, USOF has been exclusively busy chasing those elusive JROTC coaches that would dedicate most of their federal tax-funded instruction time to orienteering. I understand the approach, and it's hypocritical and inefficient as far as it comes to fostering orienteering performance. One can only await what USOF's genius would make of the self-declared "focus on juniors".

And, it seems unfair to require that athletes undertake exclusive responsibility for their training and performance. Some unique individuals may pull through, but just about everyone who medaled at this WOC was supported by a strong high-performance program, guided and funded by their national federation.

So, I think everyone on the US Team in Denmark deserves utmost respect for keeping up the dedication to training and competing at the top level—at a time when seemingly only a small group of close friends cares. There are more than you think, and they—we—genuinely wish you, the best we have, success in the woods. Every place, every step up counts. The numbers are clear and there has been steady improvement because of your sacrifices, but also because of the help of friends and those who work selflessly on projects that make this improvement possible; Sprint Series, camps, and fundraisers. Keep the effort up, and we'll all make this thing work better!

Yes, WOC's still on, and congrats are in order for the results that have been achieved so far, Sam, Louise and Hillary especially. Almost time to tune in to the Relay. As it's my club's family training weekend out in a bucolic setting, I'll be driving in to town (in the wee hours) to catch any WiFi and WOC news, but I'm keen to catch whatever I can of it.

Now, that radio interview on CBC...did she say "Kick American Butt", or "Butt American Heads"?

Good luck in the relays, and congrats on achieving something that most of us on Attackpoint will never do - competing at WOC so that we can have this conversation.

I grew up orienteering with Jaime Stevenson and Jon Duncan and back when we were juniors few in the UK thought Brits had much chance of being competitive in the face of total dominance by the Scandinavians....Times change pretty fast.

Sorry if all this is a distraction Boris, but the truth is that these discussions break out during WOC because that's when the rest of us pay the most attention to international results. I think that should be taken as a good thing, as in evidence that we care, even if the comments are not always positive.

I think Eric B hit an important point. Although it may be annoying and even discouraging to receive criticism during WOC, it 's a sign of a growing support base. As the team continues to improve and continues to build a "fan base" this is something you will have to deal with more and more. Supporters feel they have a stake in the team and as a result they will follow your performance more closely and will want to comment on it. This is part of the entertainment side of sports. for better or for worse.

"Part of the entertainment side of sports." I hear that argument all the time, BUT it's always being addressed to a highly-paid professional athlete. Not quite the same situation we have here, is it?

Vlad: "So, I think everyone on the US Team in Denmark deserves utmost respect for keeping up the dedication to training and competing at the top level—at a time when seemingly only a small group of close friends cares. There are more than you think, and they—we—genuinely wish you, the best we have, success in the woods. Every place, every step up counts. The numbers are clear and there has been steady improvement because of your sacrifices, but also because of the help of friends and those who work selflessly on projects that make this improvement possible; Sprint Series, camps, and fundraisers. Keep the effort up, and we'll all make this thing work better!"

QFT

Thanks everyone for all the fervent interest and support. The level of enthusiasm from fans back home was very encouraging during the past week. I personally appreciate both positive comments, constructive criticisms, or whatever. Each of these are useful in their own way, though others may well feel differently

As usual, I think Vlad makes a lot of sense, but others do, too. Coach and EricW know what they are talking about. I don't have much to add, so I won't say anything else here at the moment.

But, as an aside, it is valuable to see comments in the thread from other athletes who have competed at the world champs recently as they are especially well placed to make relevant personal observations.

I find it very illuminating when Hanny talks about "high" training volumes (125 km a week is not particularly high by track and field standards, even for women—hence the quote-unquote, but is probably something most female orienteers in any country are not accustomed to). On my own anecdotal example, which by all means may not be indicative of anything broader, I credit two things to a fairly rapid transition to those kinds of volumes as soon as my body could handle those (age 16-ish). One was an improvement in running speed from a ~57 Vdot to a ~62 Vdot within four training years without a corresponding change in VO_2max (stayed at ~64), all while doing minimal speedwork (once a week on average). Another effect proved much longer lasting. I had all of two injuries in 21 years of orienteering. It seems to me that although ultra-high volumes are commonly blamed for increased risks of injuries, speedwork and too much competition-pace effort without an adequate mileage base may be just as detrimental.

Sermonize here if I might. A lot of fast people I have seen among the US Jr O-Team and graduates in the recent past, but the speed is fleeting. A year off training, and we're back to square one. With a proper mileage base introduced early (so that it would become a manner of good training culture, sort of like brushing teeth), it seems that the effect might not have been so drastic. And, several very promising athletes seem to be permanently injured. I think their injury potential may have been reduced had they gone through enough miles in their late teens/early twenties, be it road miles, trail miles (seems preferred to me), or even off-trail (seems hard to put in enough of those at a proper effort). Kilometers just might work as well as miles.

There is another effect to what seems to be the preferred regime of faster running, putting in enough quality work (be it hills, intervals, or fast forest sessions) without, necessarily, a corresponding base effort. This particular mix can and does work well for shorter race durations, but is not so appropriate for the protracted Classic/Long format that North Americans seem to be historically weakest at. But, with the Sprint becoming a fully respected member of the disciplines, this may not be a downside at all; cutting base hours makes it possible to have a very productive training schedule that can fit into one's daily life along with career and family demands. To rephrase, if pressed for training time, punt on the Classic and possibly the Middle, and put all energy towards the Sprint; this may be the winning formula for a North American trying to elbow the way into the world's elite. As long as that someone doesn't get injured.

But, this window of opportunity may not be open for much longer, and may not be that wide. At the very top, obviously you can't keep winning while neglecting the base. The Sprint podium in Denmark was taken by orienteers who aren't slouches in a race of any "regular" duration, and all seem to build their training on a solid volume base, Hanny being the prime example. Runners with impressive, professional-like amounts of "pure running" training, which does not ever neglect the base, may not have been at the very top in Denmark but were, and usually are, quite close (I'm thinking of Khramov, Omeltchenko, Mårten Boström).

To summarize—base is your friend even if you are training for 1500 m. Dr. Snell figured that out about 40 years ago.

I think Landy was onto it several years before that.

I would strongly second Vlad's comments about the importance of base, both in a given season and over a lifetime. It is certainly what I attribute my relative lack of injuries to.

Vlad, fine principles of training, but I did a double take on your phrase "minimal speedwork (once a week on average)". In your track/distance running context, I understand your comment, but in a NAmerican O context, this 1x/week would seem to be a lofty goal, although one that I strongly agree with. Don't we need to crawl before we walk?

Two weekly templates I would like to recommend as good models. One, Louise O's ("salal" link here, over 1 year ago?) template prepared by Ted d St C(?) struck me as the single most useful post I have seen on the subject of O training, practical, simple, flexible, with the proper priorities and proportions. Second, in a recent "Orienteering Today", the Halden O club template, also struck me as very good, with important similarities to Louise's, but more tailored to a specific group and setting. I think either of these would lead to a good balance of activity.

When I used "quality" in my post above, I was intending a broader meaning than the common high intensity/hill rep/speed application. In the broader context I would define a quality workout as any workout that exceeds race effort in at least one aspect, in other words, any workout that pushes the boundary on a significant limiting factor to performance. This would include a workout that is overdistance, or over pace, or over climb (% or total), or any targetted technical session. I'll even include the concepts of quality rest, and quality (targetted) injury prevention. I think it should be everybody's goal to minimize purposeless workouts, and get more quality out of their time available.

I think EricW is refering to a post by salal in this thread. (Third last post, close to the bottom)

Re Hanny's cited 125 k a week.... that was her reported volume after she cut back on the distance to work on speed.

pi- Actually, what I remembered was a one-week-only outline, but this looks even better, more detailed and complete. Thank you, thanks to Matthew R (emailed me to same link), and even more thanks to the author of both, Ted(?).

That's Ted de St. Croix, coach of Canada's national team, who finished 10th at the 1985 WOC - still the best-ever finish by a North American man.

One could certainly do a lot worse than following Ted's template. Seems to cover just about everything.

One thing I do differently is that I use a 2-week template. This is partly because my training is geared for Adventure Racing and it's just too hard to squeeze everything into one week. I've also found that if you're serious about putting in a long run (2.5 - 3.5 hours), that may not be something you want to do every week.

Here's my template for this year's early base period (1/23 entry). I think if you replaced the mountain biking with technical nav practice, it would be a decent orienteering template for the same period.