The UWOC sprint race will be held within the Santa Barbara castle of Alicante.  Starting at the top and racing down into the village houses with their flowerpots, then finish along the famous sandy beach.  I wonder if we will have to run in the sand for long??
More info on Alicante city here http://www.alicante-spotlight.com/photos/alicante01/44.htm

Swiss images

Challenges of 2012

Thought I would get back onto this blog page as I am setting off on another adventure.  As a way to record what Im up to.   

Next week I am heading off to Europe for this years World University Orienteering Championships in Alicante, Spain (http://sd.ua.es/en/orienteering-championship/)and the World Orienteering Championships in Lausanne, Switzerland (http://www.woc2012.ch/).  It will be exciting to race where the atmosphere is so high.
In Alicante I will race the Sprint, middle, and relay.  The sprint is in the city and willl take in small alleyways and possibly Monte Tossal which is a castle like maze.  The middle. relay and long will be on technical, open, scattered shrubby terrain.  Compass bearings will be useful I expect.

I have a map database here: It is where I upload my routes from races and trainings.
http://www.numberoneaucklanddoma.com/maps/index.php?user=Angela

In preparation this year, I have been doing lots of aqua jogging.  This is because I suffered a shin stress injury.  The pain developed over summer is slow to heal.  The best way to recover shin stress injuries is by not running, not a pleasing recommendation when I have races to train for.  So aqua jogging and biking have kept me fit. Two hours solid aqua jogging last week was a mental effort.  These sessions including lots of intervals have taught me mental strenght and how to listen to my body responding to training.  Sports phsycology coaching through the Hillary Scholarship has been a new experience and I plan to use these techniques to make stronger race decisions with focus, and in particular avoid distractions during spectator legs.

Over the summer, I competed at Sprint the Bay.  Awesome unique courses once again make this a highlight event.  I was in the yellow jersy going into the final stage and planned to keep it but accidentally ran past a simple control during our map change and thus lost the lead.  Well, next years Sprint tthe Bay should be bigger with international competitors likely as the race follows on from the World Cup and Oceania series.  http://www.oceania2013.co.nz/  http://www.sprintthebay.org/

NZ National Championships held by NW Orienteering Club were another highlight lead up event.  The middle distance map Middle Earth is now one of my favourite NZ maps.  Such tricky detail to simplify, all on a hillslope so you have to keep an eye on height also.

And more recently Queens Birthday weekend events were held at the start of June in Waitarere forest.  The loops race on Monday was the best.  A mass start loops style race made
 for close head to head racing and put pressure on everyone.  Just what we need before heading off to Europe.

On the local scene, I have arranged evening club training sessions to talk about orienteering techniques and do paper exercises.  Now, I am of to Kairangi for the final event before I fly out.  Plenty of mud, and chillyness likely. (-:

Back in NZ

Now that I am back in New Zealand, I figure it is time to update and record how it all went. I can get more out of my racing by analysing it now for future improvements. I did make notes while I was away but I didnt get to a computer to type them up. So I'll put up a few thoughts over the next few weeks.
I am also thinking more about doing serious "paper" technical exercises. It would be great if us NZers could make a few each then circulate a few each week to share ideas on. Let me know if you want to join in. (-:

Angela at the Junior World Orienteering Championships 2011 slideshow

Here is a short video of my time at JWOC 2011 in Poland. It was the time-of-my-life. Open fast terrain, technical well organised races and an awesome team to share it with. Thank you to those who donated photos.

To Sweden

Now the time has come to leave beautiful Finland and go by ferry to another beautiful country, Sweden. Ran a course in forest behind Jyvaskyla yesterday, between the thunderstorms. Was really nice forest in places and also big ski and forestry paths. Would be good for running training just like Whaka in Rotorua (:

Very excited for racing at Oringen with 10,000 competitors!! The terrain will be tough I am sure. The courses are all quite long so it will be fun. 115 girls in my grade. I am just aiming for tidy races and minimal losses. Compass and confidence are two things I will need to use. I will also focus on accurate entry and exit from control sites, this is where I figured my mistakes began in Fin5. Yay lets keep going (=

Finland!!

Fin 5 was a really fun week of orienteering. I had 2 training's in the forest with a local before the first race. This was very helpful. I was suprised by how rocky the forest was. Maybe a bit like Australia. Broken rock on the ground made it hard to run. Navigation was not too bad as there were big hills and cliffs to use. I learnt the Finnish technique of going straight no matter what. (= This worked pretty well although I think I was still not as fast as it as the top girls. This requires confidence that just comes with experience. I came fifth overall for the week of racing in D20E.

I was lucky enough to get a start in the elite sprintrace. One of the best sprints ever. So many controls and a mixture of forest and town. There were a few tricky walls. I had a fairly clean run also so I was happy. Lost time on one leg (13-14) near the end when I had a plan but did not stick to it definately enough.

After Fin 5 I had a day in Helsinki to see the city. A quick visit to Suomenlina was interesting. A very historic fortress on an island in the harbour. I then had a few days staying with Petteri Mukkonnen in Kangasala. The terrain there was even trickier than Fin 5. We trained on the Ponsa map twice. It was much flatter and less definate features than around Lohja so you really need to use your compass. The forest was so nice for running though. Petteri made a contour only map for one training at Ponsa. I was okfor the first 3 controls on this map but once I was slightly off the bearing on a leg and it was very hard to relocate. Continued with the normal map. We also trained at a map on edge of Tampere city which was off depression terrain type. The terrain is definately quite heavy running so you get tired faster. I see now why you need to dointervals up an overgrown hillside.

I am now staying in Jyvaskyla for a few days with Hanna Raitenen. We will do a few trainings before heading to Oringen on Friday. We did a small sprint race today in the town of Multia. It was a ´typical´Finnish sprint race with lots of vegetation and not so many buildings. I lost 30sec getting stuck in some shrubs. I was 2nd junior girl.

It is Thursday now. I was about to go out for morning training on map behind Hannas apartment. However the sky got darker this morning and now there is a massive downpour and thunderstorm! Lightning too! crazy! Hopefully it clears up soon. The forest map is of a hilly area with many paths and a downhill ski jump.

I will take rest on Friday and maybe easy jog on Saturday to prepare for Oringen. It will be a tough week of long races (-: Very exciting