North American Orienteering Championship 2010

As I promised at the last post, I will write about my trip to NAOC in BC. So, after the hot weather in US, I travelled to +10C and rainy Cranbrook, BC! It was quite a change for me. First race at NAOC was Middle. I remember I get some hard time to navigate and understand the map, but in the end of the course I get really happy with my Orienteering style, which promised a good result on Long.

Long course was fast, simple and boring on some splits. I had really clean race till CP12, where after a well-done long leg, I lost 3 min in the CP area (I got few Elite runners there and lost my concentration). And the same mistake on CP16, which cost almost 5 min. I got caught by Rob Baker, who motivated me to run faster in the end. As he told me after the course, he thought that I caught him, so he tried to run away (he did, but only on the finish line). His result was third, and mine was 14th or 10th between North American orienteers. I was really close to my goal, which was overall top 5!!! Concentration is one of the major mistakes in Orienteering- it could be caused by different factors; so, it needs lots of training and attention!!!

The last race was Sprint! I would say right away- it was my cleanest race ever! I got everything clean and fast. I finished 9th overall or 5th North American orienteer. I lost 6 sec to 6th place (there were two runners) and 1 sec to Boris G (or 6 sec to 3d North American orienteer). I started one of the first people, so I had to push hard to break branches. I was 2d till the Red Group started. So, they knew the results and pushed a little bit harder on 200m track finish. I am satisfied by my results for the last week! I have very stable results on Sprint and almost stable on Long, which are my favorite disciplines.

I have few weeks to eliminate my weak sides and be prepared to COC 2010 in Ottawa.