Kate Morrison's Orienteering Blog: 2012

Yes once again it has been a long time since the last post...but I am here now!!

I have arrived in Europe and been here for nearly 2 weeks now. This was a different trip to Europe as I have a one way ticket and a permit to live in Sweden for 2 years. A big change in my life is happening right now! But first I have to compete in the World University Orienteering Championships in Spain, and the World Orienteering Championships in Switzerland. It was super sad to leave everyone I love back home, but I will be back home soon (hopefully as soon as December for the World Cup races in NZ!).

I flew into Geneva where I met with Ross, Tane, Greta and Amber where we did a few days of training around Lausanne. My bag was delayed and I would have to wait till Friday to pick it up, but there was a slight problem of me going to Spain on that same day. So off to Spain on Friday we went! (Greta, Amber and I) We were also on the same flight as Lilian Forsgren, it was a nice catch up :-)

WUOC!

Once we arrived in Alicante, we had just till Tuesday to get used to the terrain and taper with our training before the first race on Tuesday. It was a bit of a shock arriving into Alicante as the weather was so extreme!! I think the first day we got there the temperatures were rising close to 40 degrees! Quite a different climate from the NZ winter...
Another thing to look forward to once I got to Spain was that Rassmus was running for the Swedish team, so I would be able to see him after 5 whole months apart!!! :O

Finally got my bag after 3 and a half days without it!

The NZ team at the Opening Ceremony

Amber (coach/sister) and I at the opening ceremony

I was racing in the Long Distance, Middle Distance and the Relay, so had a rest day when the Sprint was on.

The Long Distance was super challenging! It was so incredibly steep, and the heat did not make that climb feel any easier. I managed to have a steady race. A few mistakes here and there, so a bit of time lost, but most of my time was lost on the route choices, in particular the long leg after the ravine crossing. I should have taken an easier running track route instead of changing half way and trying to go straight. I was totally smashed doing this route choice and hit the wall very badly! So in the end it was ok and I ended up 39th out of 67.

Chilling before the Long Distance

The Middle distance was on totally different terrain than the Long distance, and I had actually had some practice on the maps which are similar to this map. I felt rather confident on the warm up map just before my start, but I still felt nervous. I managed to get off to a steady start to number 1, although overshot number 2. The next two legs are where I gained confidence in my good route choices! I went rather straight and kept stopping to check my compass direction along the way to 3, and 4 I decided to take the bottom route even though it looked green. I caught the Czech girl who started 2min ahead of me around #3, so we managed to stick together for a bit. She was making mistakes, then I would get in front, then I would make mistakes and she would get in front. At the second to last control, I lost my direction into the control, so was stuffing around for a minute, but I knew I had not stuffed it as much as the Czech girl and a few other girls that were in the same area. At the finish, I knew it was a safe race, but not too sure how it would have placed? Turns out I was 10th!! :D That was a pretty cool feeling! Top 10 from a NZer is always a good thing :) Looking back at the results, 5th place to 10th place was only 35seconds! I easily lost that at that last mistake! But hey, everyone else had mistakes too, so it is what it is...just exciting to see when you get so close!! 10th! Yay! :-)

Top 10! :)

The Relay was another steady race from me...ran 1st leg and managed to stick with the pack for most of the race, although got rather tired in the end, so was going a bit slower...I made a few silly errors and went to a few other split controls, but nothing too major. Ended up about 2.35min behind the first finisher. Angela was 2nd and Greta ran last to place our team in 12th, 30min behind the Swedes.
Was a pretty fun week, and am very happy with some of my racing :) I loved the terrain, and would love to go back to Alicante sometime in the future.

The NZ girls before the Banquet

Now I am back in Lausanne where most of the NZ WOC team are here training for the competition next week. It is all so exciting, but a little scary at the same time as I make my debut on the senior level! I am racing in the Middle distance and hopefully in the Relay. The Middle qualification is on the Monday, and the Final on the Tuesday. The Relay is on the Saturday, so in between I will be trying to do a little bit of running/orienteering, but still taking it easy in case of a Relay position. We have a pretty big team this year, 5 men and 5 women, and we also have around 20 NZ spectators coming to cheer us on! It will be pretty wicked and I just can't wait!
But for now I am trying to familiarise myself with the terrain along with tapering for next week, whilst recovering from last weeks tough races! :P

One of the Middle training maps terrain

Dieter shouting Tane, Lizzie and I a nice drink in the hills after our morning training session :)

All is going good, and I have also found out that I have passed all my exams, so I am now a qualified Scientist in Geography and Environmental Science! woop woop!!

Au revoir!

Wow...so this has been a long time coming! I must admit, I have been extremely slack on the blogging...I guess I just didn't have the summer of training I expected, so was thinking there was no need for a new blogg post.

So to wrap up the summer...I worked down in Hawkes Bay at 'At Ease Cafe' as a waitress/barista. I attempted to do some training, although had a few niggly problems with my foot which has turned out to be a bit of plantar fasciitis. Have the best podiatrist in NZ working on it, providing me with orthotics, exercises and recommendations to new shoes. Some days it seems to be good, although some are not so good. Rassmus came over for 1 month over January which was pretty amazing! I still had to work, although we did have a bit of a vacation up to Gisborne for a few days which was rather nice :) Also had a nice Swedish gal Johanna staying with us for a bit which was really nice.

At the end of the summer came Sprint the Bay which was organised by my brothers and Matt Ogden. It was such an awesome event! So many entries, and a huge group of helpful volunteers. I went into this competition feeling not so great due to the lack of training and speed. I even contemplated just doing a few of the races, but then I decided it was good training if I just did it with no pressure. Amber strapped my foot pretty good for the whole weekend to prevent any further injuries which worked pretty well. Each race was fairly consistent, although some had more errors than others...managed to be in 5th place going into the last race, although Angela missed out a control and Greta picked up the wrong course, so because of those unfortunate events, it bumped me in to 3rd place overall in Women's Elite.

So after summer, I moved back up to Auckland where I am currently completing my last semester(finally!) at University...YAY! I have a few catch up papers, so some are rather cruisy, although some are quite challenging and interesting at the same time. I have started to train a bit more, although still not back to normal because of the foot, so my lead up to nationals was not as I expected, but I was just glad to be doing some training.

Nationals were held in the weekend by North West Orienteering Club. Apart from a few unfortunate glitches, it was a wicked event. Awesome areas, courses and organisation. For the first time at nationals, I was running W21E as I am an elite now!! Was a bit daunting, but was still racing familiar people, so it was fine.
Sprint was ok...made a 30sec early on as could not quite read the map well enough in the area where the control was. Then towards the end, there were a few hesitations and poor route choices. Although these things occurred, it turned out I had actually not lost as much time compared to what others had lost, so this was quite good for me :) I managed to place 2nd, 11secs down from Greta. Thanks Tom for an awesome course!
The next day was the Long Distance. This was right up the top of Woodhill on a steep map called Waioneke. It was a pretty wicked map with 7.2km and 480m climb for womens elite! :O I had a pretty good start, although hesitated too much on the first long leg and lost a bit of time. Made a bit of a route choice error to 11 and 12, and stuffed up 12 quite a bit. After the spectator leg, I was really smashed! Not used to this long in a race I guess. The forest had less visibility in the last loop and there were certainly some tricky controls to mess with our already 'smashed' state. I made quite a few silly errors due to being rather fatigued. I needed to have my concentration really firing in that last bit, but unfortunately it didn't. Through the spectator, I was only 6sec behind Greta, then she put 3 and a bit minutes on me in that last loop. Just shows how much concentration I really lost! In the end I was 4th. Amber won, which was so awesome! She really deserved it as she is a fighter and super strong for those long distance races. Very proud of her :)
The middle distance was on 'Middle Earth', a new map in Woodhill. It was a hill slope with some very tricky intricate detail. I knew that I really had to focus and use certain middle distance techniques if I wanted to place in the top 2, which I was aiming for in this distance. I took it quite easy in the start and tried to be as clean as I could. If I had any doubts on where I was going I would stop for a sec to re-adjust and carry on. I would rather be clean and slower than usual on this map, then running fast and making small errors. Through the spectator and the next few controls I was leading, but then my hesitation and concentration got a bit to intense and slowed me down on the last few controls where Greta managed to overtake me for the win, 23secs ahead of me. It was close, but I was happy I was 2nd as I had aimed for either the win or this position. Was such an awesome course and an even cooler map! Can't wait to have another race there in the future. First map here, and flip map here.
Relay day. This was out at Stags Roar in fast Woodhill. I was in the 2nd team with Hamish Goodwin and Devon Beckman. We all managed to have pretty good runs, but not quite up there with the crazy teams which are made up of elites and junior elites. We had a map change, although I managed to pick up 173 instead of 172...STUPID! I couldn't believe I had done that when I had finished? I was so certain I had got the right map? It was only one control which was pretty close to the one I was supposed to get. So unfortunately I managed to MP for our team :S I felt rather bad. At least I managed to get the map I had picked up by accident back on to the fence before that team came in for their map change. Had a few mistakes out there, so was a bit back than the other girls. First map, second map.
Overall a pretty consistent weekend which I was super happy with for my first year running Elites with the big girls! Made my confidence boost a bit, knowing my orienteering technique is fairly steady at the moment, although still room for improvement. Fingers crossed now waiting for the selectors decision on the NZ WOC and WUOC teams...eek!

Another cool thing happened. I had a surprise 21st party thrown for me on Monday night. I had no idea whatsoever that this would happen. I got such a shock! It was so thoughtful of all my friends! There were some funny speeches including one from Ross and one from Rassmus. Very comical. Had such a wicked night, and am so thankful for everyone who came. And an even bigger thanks to all the people who got me a Garmin watch! ahh!! So excited!

So that was a wrap up of the last...AGES!! Hopefully less of a break before the next post! :P

Vi ses!

Photos from the Summer...