Athlete is nothing without coaching/training

I realized that I was writing about my-self and did not mention about my coach. I am a lucky athlete, who does have a real coach, who can listen, analyze and provide valuable feedback. I have a huge personal respect and trust to this person.

When I compete, I try not to put down, first of all, my coach and only than my-self. For the last 1, 5 year, my orienteering and running shapes have been improved in my-own eyes and I start having fun in the forest. I wrote it before- “More fun you have, better your results are!”

My coach is Andrei Logvin. I believe he is THE BEST and most knowledgeable Orienteering coach in Canada or even North America. This year his athletes got 3 medals in the most competitive groups at Canadian Orienteering Championship in Ottawa. Serghei Logvin got Silver at Sprint M18 and both of my medals (Silver at Sprint and Bronze at Long M Elite) are his achievements too. He does spent lots of time to coach Serghei and me; and his price for that is personal performance. I promise that next year will be much easier for Andrei to deal with us (b/c we are better with every training), so he can fully compete at COC11 in Yukon. But so far, Thank You very much for your time, energy and trust!!!

My next post will be about positive and negative sides of organizing O-events.

Second in Canada or 50/50 Sprint

It is almost a month after COC10 is over, but there is no even a day for me not thinking about that Sprint race. I spent lots of time to analyze what happen and why I get so far behind a leader. I asked myself what could be done differently and why I did not do so. There is only the part of my analysis:

As soon as I get to the sprint area, I realized that there are lots of buildings and most of the choices will be 50/50. I knew I should not stop even for a sec. I was starting the last, so I tried to avoid the finish area because there were announcements about present winner time. I changed and warm-up perfectly as I planned. I did not feel any pressure; it felt like it was training. I had some empty feeling though.

I started behind the building across the finish area. As fast as I turned around the building, people started to scream. I ran straight and was hoping to run so in the woods, but they were too green and I followed the path on semi-open area till road and to CP#1. CP#2 was easy to come back to field and run downhill with fence corner as an attack point. CP#3 was the most surprising for me. I lost on it ~15sec to a leader. I ran hard till the trail and uphill till the flat, than right on the boulder. I probably should go straight as a leader did, but I remember it was a rocky area, I still do not understand, how? CP#4 was easy. CP#5 too, but on a way I checked 16 and 17. From CP#7 I could go right or left. I went in the way I should not stop (left), plus I should not stop on CP9 after. It was a smooth run. I lost to a leader ~ 1-2 sec there on speed. CP#11 was my only mistake at this race. I should not cross the line. On CP#14, I checked the legends and I knew that the flag is in the bottom, so I stayed low and picked it up with no lost. CP15-16-17 was same routes as I ran before. Coming to last CP, I saw many people were cheering for me, so I pushed hard (5 sec to a leader :).

I punched last CP and started to finish, but I realized I did not see a light flash (b/c people was taking photos) and I did not hear a noise (b/c of announces that I am running for the top place). I was so focused on punching all CPs clear that I even did not realized how, but I turned and punched it again. I lost few sec there, but it was not close anymore.
I lost around half a minute on a 2.8k course. It is a lot. I was losing 1-2 sec at almost each split. I could not run faster- b/c of sickness I had few days before or not training harder. I had cleanest Sprint race of my life at NAOC (9th place overall or 5th North American with 2 sec lost to 3d), Sprint Chase was phenomenal race (I won it with 15 people running in 1 min chase), and COC Sprint was another perfect race, but just not my day.

It is a right time to go through it and move forward for Ontario Champs by GHO (Long and WRE Sprint), US Classic Champs (total of 2 long courses) and Hammer Raid 25k in Hamilton, as the last race of the year.

I am at the news...

Ottawa citizen posted a nice article about Canadian Orienteering Championship and I am the part of it! ;)

http://www.ottawacitizen.com/sports/Gaining+ground+competition/3430214/story.html

Bronze at COC 2010 Long course

In my opinion, Elite runner’s goal is to simplify the map, in such a way that makes orienteering fun. So, before the start my goal for the race was to indentify the most obvious features on the map. In my scenario, it was top of the hills and lakes- those are most dominate features on the map. I was happy to see most of the top hills were rocky and easy to run on. From the course planner notes, I knew that there are no trails in the beginning of the course.


So, my 1st route choice was really simple because it was along the trail and up at the reentrant. On the second leg, I ran slowly with an idea to adjust to the map. I caught Nick Duca (Stars), who started 3 min before me in the RED GROUP. After 2d CP he ran away and I caught him again at Cp 6 (long leg). Legs to CP3 and CP4 were simple as to stay on the top of the hills and make sure I was running on a right compass bearing. CP5 was easy one around on the road. CP6 was the longest leg, and it usually the main leg on the long course. Again, I was running on top of the hills with the lakes on both sides. Cp7 was short and it meant to be a turn point, so no problem with it.

CP8 was another long leg, where the good route choice could save you few minutes. I went straight and was running strong there, but in the last 100m, where I should cross the beaver dumb, I could not do so- it was too thick. In the end, I ran around to CP8 through CP9 (2min lost). It was ok because I ran through CP9 and half of the CP 10 leg without looking at the map after- that extra loop to CP8 saved me time on the next 2 splits. CP10 was a map exchange point.

CP11 was a 50/50 choice, and I went right- almost to the road. After CP11, I could not find the beaver dumb between the lake and marsh, so I get caught by Nick again. I ran straight till CP14. To CP 15, I ran left through islands; I did not check the compass bearing, and went to much right on one of them, so I had to cross an extra dumb- I lost 1 min there.CP16- two towers, two hills, marsh, and under two cliffs.
CP17 had two possible route choices (left or right). I went left to the broken fence (good feature on this map), two hills, marsh, three hills, beaver dumb, hill, beaver dumb and hill with CP on the bottom of the cliff. I passed John Torrence- another RED GROUP runner. CP18- beaver dumb, 2 hills and another dumb, followed the cliffs till the control point.

CP20 was easy and good for me because I could use my speed a little bit. I ran fast and got CP 20 without mistake through the semi-open area. To CP21, I ran straight, even though I had a choice of the road- but I was confident on my orienteering skills. CP 22 was a classic traverse leg. I stopped to drink water and got caught by Nick again. To CP 23 I went straight through the top of the hill and trail as a catching feature. Running to CP 23, I got a felling that there is something different with the map and I thought it is because it is a forest part. After the race, I saw that the last forest part was mapped by a different cartographer. So, I had to slow down and use trails as a save feature. I ran with Nick till CP25 and after it I ran as fast as I could. I knew it will be a good result because I was running clean and had fun. I finished third, and as I like to say: “More fun you have, better your results are!”