Training Log Archive: Ollie

37th Oxford vs Cambridge Orienteering Varsity Match, at Norra Lunsen in Uppsala, Sweden. Cold, with a little bit of snow on the ground, and the marshes were generally frozen! The race was in two gaffled loops, the changeover being just after a specator control and beside a frozen lake. The course was planned with fairly obvious features, but it was still an extremely difficult area to orienteer in - a real classic. A few paths in the northern part of the map, but marshes were the only linear features to follow in the southern half.

I had a cautious but good run, with no big mistakes. One five minute mistake on the approach to No. 5 was solved by relocating off a path that was 100m behind the control. There was also two one minute blunders on the two shortest controls of the race - the first one, on the way to No. 12 was due to a "fire and forget" - I took a risk as it was such a short control, and navigated on a compass bearing. The area is so complex that compasses almost hinder navigation, by tempting you to not navigate by feature. The other blunder was right at the end, where I simply couldn't see the (low hung) control right by the finish tapes, until I had run right around the feature and back in to it. This final mistake cost me a place...

Mistakes:
To 5: Poor map-reading (5m)
To 7: Poor feature interpretation (30s)
To 9: Lazy route choice (30s)
To 12: Lazy route choice (1m)
To 14: Poor feature interpretation (30s)
To 17: Poor feature interpretation (1m)

Fantastic area, certainly up there with the other two Swedish Varsity Matches I've been to, in 2002 and 2005. Oxford went on to win the race convincingly.

I finished 13th out of 27th runner, with the World No. 11 taking 51:51 and the best native British time being Joe's 59:30.