Discussion: JWOC II 2013 USA

Continued from this thread



We embark on the last week of training. Today the team is traveling to Prague for some tourism on their rest day.

Erin told Michael and Will they'd be staying behind to train with him but they preferred to go with the group.

From yesterday's sprint:

From training earlier in the week:

Nice woods. Happy kids. What a great experience for them. Thanks to all who helped to make this happen.

Looks like everyone is having a great time.
Looking forward to reports from Prague and if you have any good suggestions for places to visit or activities to try - I´ll be going there next month.

Oh, I miss those woods! Looks like a fantastic experience for all and I hope the training is productive!

Thanks Barb. It is so inspiring to see this great group of orienteering juniors, and to hear about orienteering training in Europe and JWOC plans. Thank you!

Echoing the thanks to Barb and adding thanks to Erin. The training sessions sound creative, challenging, educational, exhausting -- just what is needed!

RE: a couple people coming down with sore throats---I hope they aren't sharing water bottles.

JWOC organizers have made the ID cards; I know because they contacted me for one missing ID photo last night: "urgent!"

Long discussion yesterday amongst the coaches & chaperones about how to support the team as we split into the two competition groups, right through the celebrations at the end of next week.

This. is. awesome. Wish I could hit 'like' on each and every post! :)

I really like reading what the kids actually have to say on the usa blog page. Keep 'em blogging!

Thanks; here is the link again: http://usa-orienteering.blogspot.com/. I've asked; am waiting for more.

Today we did a Long training on steep hillsides and a 1:15000 map. It was raining lightly which was nice for the bugfreeness. The afternoon was off, and this evening the kids are going to see a movie.

We had our meeting earlier than usual, just before dinner. At the meeting we reviewed the course. Here is a random excerpt:

34->35. Ethan went around, tried to stay high. Duncan went NW, got on trail; there is an unmarked trail. Meg did that. Jake went straight, so did Anne. Matt tried to contour around. Nate found the contouring difficult (because of the slope). Isabel made some choice where she didn’t have to think. Trail goes up 6-7 contour lines. Isabel: but it’s only 3 higher than… People think straight would have been slower. Jake: you can go on the trail so much faster. Anne: you can read ahead. Duncan: with the majority of the course in front of you, I felt that contouring around was a good choice.

we talked about things to be aware of in the terrain, such as the traversibility of the vegetation.

Erin reported a conversation he'd had earlier in the day with Jake about confidence. Jake got to a place between 38 and 43 where he wasn't sure on the map what was up and what was down. He felt he hesitated a lot tryin gto figure it out. However, if you are confident that you are on your compass line then you can still keep running and the map will put itself together at some point. You might start running down a hill; maybe you thought it was an uphill, but if you know you're on your line, you'll put it together. Especially on 1:15000, you can start second guessing yourself, coming up a little short. It takes some courage to keep going. On the other hand, slowing down might be a good solution; but know that one option is to continue confidently on your bearing.

Nate talked about having trouble getting into the zone, and what he does when he's just off on every control (take 10-15 seconds and reset mentally).

Erin then talked about the banquet at the end of JWOC, which only the JWOC athletes will attend. We'll also have a celebration that same night for the JWOC Tour participants. Those going to the JWOC banquet have the option of attending either event, or even both (leaving the JWOC banquet to join the other gathering). Erin asked how people felt about that, and we had some conversation. Erin talked about the value of a gathering to complete the week with a ceremony, thank the organizers, and strengthen the friendships between teams that builds over JWOC. However, the way the JWOC banquets have been playing out has not met that promise. Instead, many attendees take the opportunity to get very drunk.

Our rule is that no US junior under the age of 18 can drink alcohol. Those of age (18 and over in the Czech Republic), if they choose to drink alcohol, should do so responsibly, though no drinking is OK until JWOC is over.

I pointed out that most JWOC teams are composed of adults aged 19 and 20. The US team, on the other hand, has kids as young as 15. It's a big difference in terms of where the juniors are in terms of partying and interacting with people socially. People on the team will look out for each other.

Erin also led discussion about a couple other important aspects of how we interact with other teams.

Erin then spoke about the teammates who are aging out of the junior category this year: Carl, Nate, Jake, Duncan and Danielle. We want to come up with something nice to do to celebrate their time with us; they are great role models and awesome teammates.

Coach Erin,
This days will be.. “CEAP CALM GO TO THE MIDDLE OF THE CIRCLE AND PUNCH THE CONTROL”tm, .OK so if US JWOC team likes the line I'll give it to them..make more shirts..
Back in days, was.. three times World Champion Coach,.. talking to two times World Champion, ( complaining about the map)..”Wat is your problem kid..go to the middle of the circle and punch the control”

June 25 is ADDISON BOSLEY's BIRTHDAY. Celebrate!

16th, to be exact...

We are expecting Anna and Elina to arrive tonight, and that will round out our complement of juniors (20) for the training in Trutnov.

There will be a rock festival at Hradec Kralove while we are competing, and we get discounted tickets. Perhaps that will be relevant for those running the Tour.

Just sang Happy Birthday and had cake & pie

I hope the band named CheckPoint doesn't play obnoxious WOC theme songs.

Heh.

This morning: practice relay; mass start. Cool (50F) and rainy. Some sore throats and some coughing. Two out nursing injuries (Melanie and Connor).

it's a little late now, but staying healthy on these training camp trips is one of the biggest lessons to learn. I hope none of the athletes are sharing water bottles. I travel with that antibacterial hand stuff, and sometimes a multivitamin if I know I'm going somewhere with limited quantities of fruit and veggies (russia in winter, eg). That tends to be enough to keep my immune system strong, but I imagine for some of these athletes the training camp has been a pretty big stress in and of itself. I hope everyone's healthy by the time JWOC starts... definitely quarantine sick athletes from the rest, if possible.

Traveling, training and racing hard for several weeks, change of environment, cultural chock (food etc.) are all components that affect your body. A lesson to be learned, but of course it´s not nice if the result is that you will miss out on important races.

I hope everyone will be staying healthy enough to compete. It´s better to skip a few training days now and rest up enough in advance to be good to go when it´s time ...

GREAT tips Alex. I hope the juniors are paying attention.

It is nice to know the juniors have a coach that understands training and competing. The JWOC competitors are not going to get much more stamina the week before the races but they can gain knowledge of the terrain and themselves.

There are more posts at the USA Team Blog.

Team meeting from June 25th, Addison's birthday:

If you are injured or sick, take care of yourself. That's your job now, and the main focus of your training.

Our first exercise today was a corridor-O. It was fun; figuring out how to start was hard. The rocks are mapped very generally, except for the really big ones. To be successful, we had to use our compasses, keep our heads up. Vegetation and other people pulled us off our corridor.

Always wear your jacket on a warmup on a cold day.

We talked through the trainings for the next few days.

Erin asked the team to share their individual life dreams, something that is real. Some dreams: create a cure for cancer. Be an engineer for space tours. Professional mountaineer. Sail around the world. Write a novel. Be a dad. Video game designer. Skydive. Publish games. Be happy. Top 10 finish at JWOC. Be a husband and father and provide for my family and make them happy. Spread urban gardening. Be a missionary or travel around the world after getting out of the army. Be on a team working on something that will make a change for the better. Be a good role model. Have a family and dogs. Spread orienteering in my area. Beat Isabel on a course. Run a mile PR. Study psychology in grad school. Climb Everest. Inspire others. Be the #1 orienteer in the US. Beat Ali Crocker. Get better at painting. Make the best maps possible. Several said that to be here, at JWOC, is a dream for them.

Erin: I dream that as human beings around the world we can learn to find common ground before we start arguing or fighting ove rwhat we think or believe. I dream that we can create an educational syste for everybody that allows an individual to feel free to follow their dreams and know how to accomplish thei rdreams. I dream that I can help create a sport in the USA that teaches people how to take the skilld of orienteering and apply them to their lives -- and navigate life by their heart and not be influenced by fear or shame or illness in making their life decisions.

Erin then asked about fears. Some were: Letting people down. The effect on my family if I die. Losing friends. The unknown. Not being there for someone. Not accomplishing my dreams. Being looked down on. Being left behind. Missing the moment. Being alone. Not being able to fix something that should be fixable. Having goals thwarted by things outside of my control. Messing up the JWOC sprint. Not having a top 10 finish, and regretting it the rest of my life. Swimming in lakes and oceans where I can't see or reach the bottom. Getting to the end of my life and wishing I'd done things differently. Telling people what I'm afraid of. Not seeing the big picture. Heights. The dark. Spiders.

Erin asked how dreams and fears work together, how they play off each other. He talked about fear and shame, where shame is about the past and fear is about the future. He mentioned the movie "Peaceful Warrior" that he'd previously asked the Standing Team to watch, about a gymnast who goes through a traumatic injury and comes back, and goes after his dreams. Sometimes you get to do something that is not possible.

Erin said that mistakes allow us to be more aware and to learn. They don't hold us back. Fears and regrets keep dreams from happening. When racing, walk into a race and put it all aside. He asked the team to think about this for the next couple of days and even write down their thoughts. It's important to acknowledge and face these things, so that once you know them and name them they can't dictate what you do.

Facing a fear is scary.

Part of training: knowing yourself allows you to be freer and not dragged around by the things in your life, like how you were raised or how you have been treated or life circumstances. In knowing yourself and how those things have affected you, you can move in relationship to them and not be led by them or react because of them.

A lot of wisdom to be found here.
I´m impressed by the way Erin and the rest of the coaches/helpers for the Junior Team addresses so many important building blocks of becoming a succesful athlete and person.

6/26 team meeting

This morning we ran a mass start relay training. It was lightly raining and quite cool. It was fast, and some people had good flow. Anne said her compass bearings were better. The mass start was good to practice. Addison had a tough race but on the positive side, he did spike one control. Also positive: no flies. Isabel ran under 8 min/km. It felt good to go hard.

Problems: Jake's shoe came off. Someone struggled with route choice execution. Several thought a big black line was north.

Tomorrow's training: some to do sprint, and some to do middle training. On Friday, some will do middle training; others will have the day off. On Saturday, we'll travel to Hradec Kralove. If you took Friday off then you'll go for an easy shakeout run. Everyone will go to the model event on the 30th.

Bulletin #4 is up. And start times for the Tour have been posted. We'll have two meetings in the late afternoon tomorrow.

We go backwards through the day, going around the team.
We picked groups so each captain is keeping track of 4 other people.

Updated blog posts. I encourage you all to comment there; it will be good for the team to know you're supporting them.

Today we visited a map with some cool rock formations. Photos by Addison

A really fun day, but bittersweet, as we wound down with our last meeting here in Hotel Patria. We won't be staying all together starting tomorrow; team members will focus more on preparing for their own races, and we'll be grouped into JWOC competitors and Tour competitors. It is really tough to be separating in this way.

Yes, I can sympathize---but what a great 12 days you've had.

cool photos, Addison, those rocks look a bit like baby sea lions ;)

Today we moved to JWOC land! Lots of teams here, and the excitement is building. There is a cool bike tower outside the hotel but I haven't figured out how to use it yet; it is all written in paragraphs upon paragraphs of Czech. I guess I'll take a photo and see if you guys can translate for me. That would be helpful because I hear that bikes get stolen a lot here.

Anna's rental car wouldn't start when she went to take the car back to Prague from Hradec Kralove. The car ended up in the garage, and the ultimate effect on the cost of the rental is yet to be seen. I did, however, go to Prague and transfer the whole thing onto my credit card instead of hers & Carl's.

The Tour accommodations are pretty nice for the 10 people there (9 juniors + Coach Anna). 4 rooms of 3, garrett rooms with sloping roofs, just them in that space -- unlike in the JWOC hotel where other teams are running around and being crazy. Plus they have refrigerators and microwaves and plates and utensils and sinks.

The meeting tonight was with the whole team (JWOC + Tour). We talked through some logistics. Erin asked how people were feeling physically and mentally. He asked how it was to be around other teams. He asked the juniors to keep in mind that part of our goal for our team is to carry ourselves as professional athletes and not get sucked into the craziness that other teams might create.

Starting tonight, it is important to get good rest. The next couple of mornings are going to be early.

It's also important to hydrate. Drink 4-5 cups of water within the hour of starting the long race. Hydrating for the long race starts tomorrow.

Erin and the team talked through what we know about the long terrain. Hills and how we deal with them. Pacing yourself. breathing.

They talked about how to use a gu effectively.

They talked about food before and after the race. Carbs (anaerobic; good for recovery); fats; protein. Don't change your diet going into a race. Eat your chicken and potatoes. Potatoes are a great source of carbohydrates.

Next Erin led the discussion about the Middle terrain. Rocks, picking your head up.

How to deal with feeling nervous. Pre-race routeine. Looking around and being in the map before getting the map.

Start slow on the long.

We talked backwards through the day. Including the part where Matt got stuck in the elevator. (He pushed a floor higher than the one they were in and the lady pushed the button for the basement, and that was enough to confuse the elevator.) We eventually realized he was missing and somehow he was rescued. That was back in Trutnov.

New arrivals: Tim and Ben Parson, Dave Yee, Dan O'Leary and his parents Janet and Bud.

I work for a company that, among other things, inspects elevators. Shall I send them over? :) I cannot wait to hear the full Story of the Elevator!

Regarding elevators and such, check out the stairways when you get the chance. Previous experience in hotels in eastern Europe (even very nice ones) is that stairways are often clogged with maintenance equipment, vacuum cleaners, carts, etc. If you ever have to get out in a hurry (eg a fire), it is nice to know in advance what kind of obstacle course you might be facing. Keeping emergency egress routes clear did not seem to be high priority when I visited Prague, Budapest, Bucharest, and Vienna a few years ago.

We crowded into Erin's room for last night's meeting.

I checked out the Trutnov hotel exits when I arrived. There was one place where a key was in a little frame behind scored glass. But the stairs were nice.

To the Junior Team and all those supporting them:

Have a great time and, as my wife always says to me when I go orienteering, "Run fast and don't get lost!". Try to keep cool heads and use what you have been taught by friends, parents and your coach.

>> PGoodwin - Erin has a team policy of framing all these mantras in a way that avoids negatives :) Try instead "Run fast, keep contact" or "Run Fast and spike every.single.control."

Go USA!

If you would like to see a sample of the training maps from the Long and the very technical Middle areas, go to the Canadian Team blog page. http://teamcanadaorienteering.blogspot.com/

Continued on USA JWOC AP blog III...

why are you still posting here Guy?