Training Log Archive: nmulder

Drove back to Switzerland

Event: 10th World Rogaining Championships 2012 Czech Republic
 

Event: 10th World Rogaining Championships
 

We were given the maps about 2.5 hours beforehand and sat there for about 10 minutes with absolutely no clue as to how to tackle this. There were very few obvious routes around the map, so good planning by the organisers.

Eventually we settled on a route that took us west first into a canyon region (get the climbing over with early), then swung south and anti-clockwise around the map, taking in a central area as a loop from the south-west. Decided to finish coming in from the north or north-west, depending on how much time was left. Our estimate was therefore that we could cover about 140-150km safely, missing out about 10+ controls. If we did less than 130km, we'd be stuck on the NE side of the map with few shortcuts home. There'd be quite a lot of track running as expected, but maybe not as much as at Czech Champs.

At 12 noon, started out heading to #80, the closest control, and also a major pointer. Thus 90% of the field came with us. Were sitting in 20th or so, but surged just before the feature to punch 3rd. No time loss, unlike many people behind who had to queue for 10 mins +. The pulled calf muscle was stiff and awkward, but behaving itself.

We were on our own already on the way to our 2nd, and it soon appeared that we were the only fast team tackling the canyon early. We ran well and had good speed over the first few hours. We had our first problem at #95 when looking for the ditch. Got pulled by other teams into the marsh and just missed it, doubling back later, but loosing about 10 mins.

All went smoothly then until we started doing the internal loop. We didn't always follow the best route, sometimes straying off the tracks too early when we should have been running harder by following them (e.g. to #72). There were also a few places where we were running with a few other teams who were going a bit faster then us... a bit disconcerting, but we kept pacing ourselves.

It got dark just after #96, when Ryno also had his first stomach upset. Had to stop twice for about 10 mins each for this during the course of the night. Luckily, it didn't hang around much after midnight, but it broke our rhythm for a while.

Rest of the evening went okay, but maybe we didn't push as hard as we should have. We hit the majority of the controls spot on and only a fraction slow into some of them. We were very slow from #90 to #49, choosing the track instead of the tiger-line. This probably cost us about 15 mins+. Calf muscle pain started to fade quite nicely at this stage.

Stopped to fill up with water after #54 on a small stream just some time late at night, only the 3rd time we'd stopped in the race and the last main stop as well.

We had a bad section on the nav in the late hours, finding the wrong ride into #60, then taking a less than perfect route to #99. At #99 we joined a group search for an elusive control. On the approach to the control it was obvious that there'd be problems, as teams were leaving in distinct clusters. We searched for about 10 mins before finding it (maybe 1 more ditch than shown on the map?), which then drew the whole heard around us in.

At #70 (another funny control), we picked up an additional team member (4-legged kind) off two Aussie girls. Heavens knows where the dog had originally started following teams from.

We almost fluffed #52 on the way in, and then struggled on the way out as well. Pre-daybreak definitely wasn't being kind to me. It got light going into #98, but we still made another mistake approaching #86 when we found an extra ride. From thereon no more mistakes, but also less nav and more running on roads. This German side of the map was definitely not as well mapped, so it was a good thing we'd left it to last and in the daylight.

We were still on our Plan A route at #88 when we cut off for home. We picked up #91 and found some time for #38 at the last moment. The shortcut worked perfectly and got us home with a few minutes to spare, thanks mainly to spot-on mileage prediction.

We were still managing to jog towards then end. Feet weren't as sore as in Czech Champs, which helped.

Punched the finish and then started waiting around to find out the results. We were confident of a Top 10, but didn't know if we'd made Top 5. Eventually found out our points were good enough for 5th, so we were very happy with our performance. 1st and 2nd place were well ahead of us, covering at least another 15km, whilst 3rd through to 8th was all very tight.

So overall a decent run for us. My sore calf didn't hamper me too much apart from a bit of a lack of speed early on. The terrain was never going to suite us too well, too much track running and not enough complex navigation. However, looking at the split times, it's obvious that we did well to get 5th. There were many teams faster than us on most legs, maybe 10-12 of them, and only through consistency did we move up the rankings, having hovered outside the Top 10 in accumulated points until at least 8 hours into the race. Racing the Czech Champs 2 months ago definitely did help with being well prepared and understanding terrain and expected speeds.

It was a good experience and once again I learnt a bit more. Most important lesson for this terrain was matching your route with the distance you'd run in 24-hours. If you underestimate and find yourselves too far away from the finish, you ended up running lots of distance towards the end with few points, dropping your points / km average. Better planning of distance prediction and a route that collected points all the way into the finish (your Plan A) would allow for a higher points / km average. We were successful with this to a degree, but it's probably the most important point in the success of the Estonian winning team - they seem to have gauged their Plan A route perfectly.

Results

Next year is Russia. We'll be there for that. However, I'm already looking more forward to South Dakota in 2014... :-)

From Orienteering Maps

GPS track is attached, however, the data logger only worked for a few hours before the battery died... time to replace it.

C • Well done! 2

C • Good job! 2

Took a complete rest day before WRC tomorrow.

Went around all the controls on the Model map for the World Rogaine Champs with Ryno. With my calf niggle, we ended up walking large parts of the course so that I didn't stress it any further. It's recovering, will maybe get it back to 90% before the WRC.

Interesting area. Forest is whiter than our previous Rogaine here a few months ago. More undulating instead of the Koppie landscape as well. Map isn't as good as I expect the WRC map to be. Only 1 problem control, #43, where we came in too low. Otherwise some map omissions approaching #93 that made things interesting.

From Orienteering Maps

Drove to Carlsbad. Nice dorp.

Flew into Switzerland. Will drive from here up to the Czech Republic for World Rogaine Champs on Friday / Saturday.

Ran the trails around Schut with Ryno from the stream-side carpark. Nice run, apart from when I felt a good muscle twinge about 1/2 way in my R calf. Some damage, so not nice. Hopefully it recovers fully by World Rogaine's later this week.