Organize is fun, get injured is not!

The last few weeks were quit a ride for me. After Canadian Orienteering Championship, I was really busy with organizing two last TOC Wednesday Night trainings. My first WNT was in Earl Bales Park (right map) where I set the same course as I had on Summer Training Camp http://vimeo.com/15346460 There were lots of positive feedback and few families came back next week again!

My second and last 2010 TOC WNT was in Taylor Creek East. I presented a new updated map, which included some new parts that were never used for orienteering before. The main course included middle (left) and sprint (2d map). On both trainings I had 35+ participants. After the training, TOC had a pizza party, and I was happy to see more than 10 juniors there. Some of them represented TOC at Ontario Orienteering Championship in Hamilton.

All my next week I spent for organizing Turkey Trot event.
Review of this event by Robbie Anderson (a winner of $100 main prize): http://teamcanadaorienteering.blogspot.com/2010/10/turkey-trot-2010.html I, personally, did not have a chance to control this event on Sunday because I got injured day before during course setting. I had spent 2 hours in hospital, where I got 5 stitches on my left low leg (little bit under the knee).

I did not run for a week. On eight day, I went for 20 min run and felt very sore next day. After one more practice, I felt discomfort; so, I took stitches out by myself.

And in a day, I was racing Ontario Orienteering Championship in Hamilton. My first race was World Ranking Event- Sprint. I did my best and finished 6th. Such a result could be a lack of energy or even a fear to get injured again, but I can say for sure there was lots of climbing.

I skipped Middle course and ran Long on Sunday. I finished 6th again with few minutes behind third place or 1st Ontario. After the race, I saw that I lost 3 min on the first CP, which was a long leg. I lost on speed and small mistake in the middle of the leg. The rest of the course was really clean. Results and maps are here:
http://dontgetlost.ca/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=221&Itemid=263
In the end of the day, my coach and I are happy with my results. Hamilton area is phenomenal orienteering terrain and with this year new map, it is truly a gold reservoir for Canadian Orienteering. I am sure that we will see lots of great juniors and elites coming out from Hamilton (GHO club) in a few years.

PS: I got great news that my comments for COC long were posted on North America Orienteering newspaper :) Super happy!

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!”

O-week in Ottawa

My last preparation has included a week of Orienteering in Ottawa. The first day in Ottawa was really rainy, but as usual, it does not stop orienteers from racing.

My first race and gold medal was on Farsta race (Lac Beauchamp. Farsta means one-man relay. We had 3 loops with two kilometers courses on them. Ottawa terrain is well known for its rocks and marshes. After my first loop, I was 3d. I did not do mistakes, but choose more safe routes. In the middle of the second loop, I got Robbie Anderson. We ran all way to the end, but two CPs before finish, I checked legends and our CP was located on the bottom of the cliff. After Robbie went up, I went to the bottom and got a chance/advantage to punch it first and as a result, I finished first.

My second race was Classic Event. It took place on the same area as 1st Canadian Orienteering Championship (COC) in 1968. The map is quit old and vegetation is not reliable; so, I took it easy. I finished 4th and only few seconds behind second place, which was not as bad as I was thinking.
My third day was a Sass Peepre Junior Training Camp. I got an excellent opportunity to run some Orienteering with juniors, and provide them a feedback later. Training day included 4 trainings: Contour-O, Line-O, Sprint and Star-O. I would like to say that only my group of kids took all CPs in the forest. I was really surprised that present juniors are more Orienteering oriented and willing to spend their time to improve their skills and results.
Next day I got sick and did not feel well, but I wanted to run a Sprint Chase in Carleton University. Sprint Chase included prologue at 12pm and chase sprint at 3pm. My goal for 1st race was not to win, but to be not far away from the leader. I started 4th and 9 seconds behind the leader in the main sprint chase. The final race was really technical, fast and fun. With 15 runners in one minute on 2,5k course, it was a great challenge to run away physically. So, I tried to run away on different route choices, but they were to close. Finally, on CP#13 (I punched 2d) the leader of the pack made a route choice mistake and pack followed him, so I ran to the right into the tunnel and got around 15 sec advantage. It was my second gold in 3 races.

My 5th day and the last before COC10 was a Relay, which I ran with Andrew and Ethan Childs from US Junior Orienteering Team. I got really confused and upset because of the start procedure. I lost my concentration and did few mistakes, which is not very often these days. I finished 5th, but my teammate did a great job and we won it. It was my third gold in 4 races. It was a great lesson from me before COC. I realized that I should focus on my-self, map and pace. Only good news was that I felt better from my sickness.
Next post is about my main race of the year- Canadian Orienteering Championship 2010.

Last preparation before the trip to Ottawa

It was one week before Canadian Orienteering Championship (COC) in Ottawa. I was packing my stuff for the week of Orienteering, and making my last preparation before the main race. I did analyze my mistakes from North American Orienteering Championship and trained hard to fix them.


I had increased a number of trainings with map. A big part of my preparation for COC10 was training with Antonio Perez (on the photo - European Youth Orienteering Champion/16th in JWOC10) and another Spanish orienteer Oscar Vila. They showed me how hard I have to work to achieve my goals.

World Orienteering Championship was a great mental preparation. I spent lots of time watching Elite runners running on live TV and GPS, and of course, after race analysis. Thierry Gueorgiou did a great job and finished with two BRONZE medals at Middle and Long. Aleksandr Kratov, my Ukrainian teammate and friend, did very well and finished 5th at Middle.

It was very important for me not to think about COC10 before the race day- I did not want to “burn out”. So, the best way to forget about upcoming races was to go and do something different from Orienteering; something like Rogers Cup Tennis tournament. I went to watch Roger Federer (Ranked 3d), who did not play for 6 weeks and it was an important return match for him. He won, but with a small struggle. It was an inspirational lesson for me to fight till the end.

My last preparation part was in Ottawa, where I had few interesting races and trainings with Canadian Junior team before the final COC10 races. Orienteering week in Ottawa is my next post!