Training Log Archive: blairtrewin

Started from the WOC office after sorting out the business I was trying to sort out last night, beginning east along the lakefront before half an hour of serious climbing, from the lake all the way up to the highest parts of Lausanne, probably about 300 metres all up. Did a section through the Sauvebelin forest (without seeing any bodies still recovering from the WOC banquet there the previous evening) before dropping back into town; got a little navigationally confused at that point but ended up getting back to the hotel OK (although with a sharp climb to do so).

This was a solid run without being anything too startling. Slower than I'd like, but feeling as if I was doing a reasonable job of grinding away on the big climbs - certainly feel stronger on these now than I have for much of this year at home. Quads suffered a bit on the descent from Sauvebelin.

So ends a trip which from the competitive point of view was rather frustrating because of illness and injury. It wasn't totally relaxing outside competition either because of what's potentially hanging over me on my return (although at least I've finally got as close to an assurance as I'm going to get that my legal defence will be covered if it comes to that). Might be a while before I'm back as I don't plan to come next year (nor do I have any work trips in the foreseeable future, after a hectic couple of years).

What's next is a bit of an interesting question, given that there will be no Australian Long Champs for me (I'm IOF Event Adviser). The Middle, where I've actually done pretty well in recent years, is an obvious thing to target (and having someone fresh to bring in for the relay may not be such a bad thing for the Nuggets). Also keen to do well in the Victorian Championships, especially given my past history on Kangaroo Crossing, which suggests there may be opportunities there.

Big downhill early dropping down to the waterfront at Ouchy, then along the lake shore to near the 5-Days sprint assembly area before coming back up through the suburbs. Went past the Australian WOC team accommodation (which I knew was in the area, but not exactly where) and swung in to see if I could see anyone, but they were obviously otherwise engaged. Fairly solid climbing for much of the last 20 minutes but handled it pretty well. Looks a bit slow, but the Garmin is evidently not doing me justice here as I saw it running backwards at one point on a set of switchbacks. Insect clouds (known in other parts of Europe as the 'Finnish Air Force') a bit of a nuisance at times.

Then it was up to the WOC relay - good racing at the front but a rather disappointing day for us. Also completed my stint on the jury without any formal protests - don't know how unusual it is to get through a WOC without a protest?

Chance encounter of the day was when I went down to the WOC office to try to get a refund for a double-paid invoice. They were 40 minutes late opening and also stuck outside was Marcel Schiess (Swiss Orienteering president and, until yesterday, IOF Vice-President), so we had the chance to have a good discussion about orienteering in Switzerland (among other things). Numbers-wise, they aren't the juggernaut that we might think they are - their number of active members is around 7,000, about double ours - and they have some of the same issues we have in areas such as getting much flow-through from their schools programs and finding people to organise major events. One big advantage they have over us is their level of commercial sponsorship, much of which is probably the result of Simone Niggli's very high profile (I knew I was in Switzerland on my November trip last year when I saw a picture of her and newborn twins on the front of the Swiss equivalent of "New Idea") - I wonder what will happen when she retires?

C • Sponsorship 2

Back in action with a fairly easy run which was as flat as I could make it in Lausanne. A little sore early on but fine after that, except for feeling a bit awkward on a couple of steep downhills (which suggested terrain might still have tested it).

This was an early start before a sequence of four back-to-back meetings which ran from 9 to 7.30. The largest of these was the IOF Congress, which worked about as well as could reasonably be expected given the complexity of the proposals being dealt with. I won't go through all the details of what was decided - you can read that on the IOF or WOC 2012 websites (and probably on World of O soon), but in brief, for WOC, a mixed relay is replacing the middle and long qualification (probably from 2014), with the actual qualification methods referred to a working group (in which I expect to be heavily involved). The Nordic proposal for alternating terrain and urban WOCs went down 20-16. We voted for the Nordic proposal, which I believe was the one which would best facilitate the genuine globalisation of the sport, but the eventual outcome is one I can live with, providing the qualification system gives smaller countries a reasonable chance.

(I'm claiming responsibility for the line some of you might have seen quoted on the World of O liveblog, about how terrain orienteering wasn't practical in some countries because the terrain was "too thick or too mountainous or contained animals that might eat you or people who might shoot you").

The other IOF item of note was that the JWOC beer relay and associated action, in which rumour has it that some of our number may have had some involvement, got a mention (not a favourable one) at the Foot O Commission meeting. Words may need to be had. (There is no truth in the rumour that issues caused by the availability of cheap beer in Slovakia in 2012 are why JWOC 2015 was awarded to Norway).

C • Beer relay 4

C • animals 5

C • Qualification 6

Leg had improved considerably today and I'm pretty sure I could have run on it (certainly in the city, not sure about terrain), but decided to give it another day and go swimming in the evening after the WOC long final instead. The pool this time was the Plage de Bellerive, a lakefront pool complex which, as all the signs told you, has been around for 75 years this year. (Those who know their European meteorological history - or who were at WOC in that year - will know why the number of patrons in 2003 was 50% higher than in any year before or since).

This swim seemed to drag on for a long time but was quite pleasant. No issues with leg. Pool a bit cooler than I'm used to but that's not a problem (not on a nice day anyway). Finished just in time to wander across to the WOC awards ceremony.

A couple of solid runs at WOC today for the Australian contingent although we still can't quite crack a place starting with a '2' (although it was looking possible at one point as various late starters had misadventures in the men's race). There was almost some work for the jury as a result of Fabian Hertner's disqualification (punched the women's 1 instead of his 13, 41 metres apart and on a spring and pit respectively), but in the end after going out to the site with the Senior Event Adviser the Swiss decided not to go through with a formal protest. (It probably would have been dismissed anyway, as similar-features-within-60m is a guideline, not a rule as the controls-within-30m is).

One nice feature of WOC is the couch for the current leader (some late time loss cost Aislinn the chance to spend a few minutes on it). Might have to look at doing this for next year's Australian Sprint - Eon tells me the ancient couch from the Year 12 common room still exists so maybe it can be pressed into service for this purpose.

C • I have a VIP couch 1

C • Heat 2

The leg had improved somewhat today but still wasn't good enough to run on (in terrain anyway). Suspect it's probably one or two days away. Instead I picked up a map at the start and walked a few controls.

This was a beautiful area, 1800 metres up in the mountains at Bretaye (the views looking south from the assembly area were especially stunning). It would, though, have been a brutally tough area to race on - the forest, where it existed, was thick and rough, and heavy spring growth meant there was a lot of grass and other low vegetation in the yellow, too. When I left, no-one over the age of 14 had broken 10 minutes/km on any course (81 was leading M40, which was 7.6km). There will be a lot of DNFs today, and a lot more exceeding the maximum time (2.30), if they enforce it.

(After I got back I saw Markus Hotz, a Swiss M40 who's a bit better than me and who was staying next to me at WMOC, and commented to him - he hadn't started yet - that anyone under 10s would be doing well; he said he was hoping to do 7s. My immediate thought was "he's dreamin' ". He ended up doing about 90 for 7.6, a pretty respectable result).

And perhaps the Lausanne police read my log (or alternatively Constable Frogga read it and tipped off Interpol), because this afternoon the drug dealers had been replaced by cops in gear not far short of full SWAT team level.

Update: as far as I can tell one person got under 10 min/km, just - Martin Hubmann did 113.46 for 11.4 in M21E. They drew the cut at 3 hours so 54 out of 85 made it (had they stuck to their original plan of 2.30, it would have been 32). Also some respect points for Alison Crocker (11.3 min/km in W21E), who I think was trying to show us what we were missing out on through her non-qualification (in the heat that Lizzie and Vanessa also missed out from) for the long final.

No go - felt a bit better today than yesterday walking, but tested it out running and it was obvious in the first 100 metres that a jog was going to be the best I could manage, and that probably not on rough ground. If it had been something like a WMOC qualifier I might have tried to push through, but not worth it for this. Not sure how long it will be a problem - my previous instances of severe bruising have taken about three days to settle but those have all been in the knee area, not the thigh.

The WOC middle race looked good from what I saw, although I didn't get to see a lot of it - I was on the men's start, so only got to see the early women and late men. One thing I did note at the start was that quite a few people took advantage of the timing gate (it's legal to start within 5 seconds either side of your allocated start time) - most jumped the gun by only a second or so, but two did it by 3-4 seconds. I'm not sure why there's any allowance at all (beyond whatever the uncertainty is in the timing system).

The observant may have noticed that I recorded a result, but this was actually Jim masquerading as me (and starting ~20 minutes late).

C • timing gate 4

Not a day I'll look on with any great pleasure from the competitive point of view, as we headed into some pretty rough Jura forest.

Not off to a great start with 15 seconds lost on 1 and 45 on 2, but then settled down OK technically - pretty clean through the tricky loop in one of the more technical parts of the map, including nailing the scary downhill legs at 5 and 9, though didn't feel as if I was running with any great fluency in the terrain. Still seemed to be getting into a reasonable rhythm when I had an argument with the end of a branch on the way to 10. It could have been a lot worse - I didn't see the branch at all and ran into it at full speed - and for a while I thought it was worse and I might have to walk in from the far end of the map, but I was able to get back into a run. Still, obviously unsettled by the pain, I lost time on four of the next five, none of them particularly significant but all of them annoying, and was rather in blah mode by the later stages.

The upshot was being 15 minutes down in around 15th, and a badly bruised thigh. It hasn't swollen up as much as I thought it might have done, but I'm not really walking comfortably tonight and the chances are still that my event is over (which is a pity as the next two days look pretty nice). We'll see how it feels in the morning. Can't be too upset when I compare it with the nightmare of Muz's WOC debut (last heard of on his way to hospital after doing some significant damage to his ankle).

Names from the past department: I was doing some reading on the train on the way to the event and saw a quote from one John Asker, an economist at New York University. (For those who have come on the scene in the last 15 years, John was part of the considerable wave of talent that came out of the ACT in the early 1990s and was in the 1994 JWOC team).

And tonight was a bit of an improvement on last night - tonight I've got back from the IOF Foot O Commission meeting at 10.45 instead of 11.55 like last night (and as an added bonus the resident drug dealers on the corner down the road are nowhere to be seen).

C • lnjury 5

C • Drug dealers! 2

C • 1