Michael Svoboda: February 2014

NAOC 2014

3rd Sprint M20

4th Long M20

7th Middle M20

Czech Republic

WUOC Tour
Olomouc, Czech Republic

Kromeriz Sprint - 11th out of 48 in M21

Silesia Grand Prix

Vidnava, Czech Republic

Bulgaria

JWOC 2014
Samokov, Bulgaria

JWOC Sprint

The Sprint race was the first JWOC experience of my life, and so naturally I felt a little anxious before my race. As I started, I was able to predetermine the direction that I was leaving the map pick up by seeing the direction the runners were crossing a bridge in the reflection of a glass door.

To the first control I ran left to the bridge and then finished my planning along it. From there I relatively continued straight and knew that I had to cut to the left before I got to the main road where I just stayed to the left side of the long building and continued through the field into the control. To number two I just registered that I want to stay on the right side of the long building roughly halfway and so I executed the plan from there as the navigation was simple. To number five I originally wanted to go a straight as possible, namely through the two identical buildings but as I was running there I saw a car parked right in the gap leaving nearly no space to squeeze through. To number four I found myself with the issue of being unable to discern the buildings ahead of me enough to be sure enough to know behind which one I should turn. This resulted in me continuing straight for too long a turning a little late resulting in a loss of time. As I was finishing the last turn around the building I decided to go left around the building in front of five because the route choice was just simpler. There wasn’t much to think about in the route choice to six, right and left were both almost identical and so l didn’t waste any time in deciding, and chose left. It might have been a little slower but the advantage of it was that after I crossed the road and turned around the building, the control was right in front of me. I already had seven planned out, so I went right because it seemed shorter.

Going to number eight I crossed the bridge and was planning ahead to number nine so I didn’t notice the route choice from the right side of the building and had to go around the wall. As I exited the compound I finalized the decision to go right to number nine. Along the way I attempted at planning a head and really began feeling my pace slow down. The biggest mistake that I made was that I did not check if the fence right before all of the buildings was crossable and so I had to run around it because I wasn’t sure and had to be safe. To ten I didn’t feel like climbing the hill and so I went left.

Number eleven was fairly obvious as right was more direct and if you read the map you wouldn’t have a problem weaving through the obstacles. Number twelve had more route choice as you could go right or left and I instinctively chose left as it was simpler, though after the race I thought right might have been a little faster. To thirteen I messed up as I exited the way I entered costing me a little time. As I was heading to fourteen I wasn’t sure if the bushes were un-crossable and so I lost a couple seconds. To fifteen I slipped and wiped out and so as I continued to 16 I was a bit disoriented. The rest of the race was alright as I didn’t make any mistakes. Overall I thought that my sprint was all right, and for next year I need to keep on training so that I can make up time in relation to my physical strength, and practice making correct sprint route choices so that I minimize mistakes.

JWOC Middle

For the middle qualifier I began too fast and rushed into the first control. I didn’t check my compass well enough and so I missed it. One of my personal weaknesses was me not using my compass often and well enough. This was a cause of many of my mistakes and I need to work on that throughout this year. I believe as an afterword conclusion, that the most efficient way to navigate through the JWOC middle terrain was to plan where possible, so that you would be able to rocket through the easy part, then when there would be a lack of obvious features then you would resort to a compass, namely for short distances.

JWOC Long

In relation to the long there are multiple things to fix ranging from mapping to running speed but overall it was my relatively best performance. My long was lost this year by the fact that I mis-punched. I could probably link this issue to the lack of experience I have in orienteering. I believe that I might have mis-punched because after running up a hill I focused on the ascent and then looked at the next control, however there were two controls close to each other both at a rock and I ran to the first one but then looked at the second one believing it was the first one, as i left the control, therefore i completely skipped it. I do not have a good enough routine as I run each leg. In other words I just need to keep on running on the map and do some more hill trainings whilst reading the map throughout this coming year. Otherwise one other issue that I found myself running into was that I was not registering every other possibility for route choices. At one control in particular, the long leg 3-4, I completely missed a relatively small path that would have saved me a ton of time. I had at least 700m of road to plan and think about it and I still missed it. I just believe that this comes from lack of experience and I just need to practice the map reading more again. Besides these points this was probably my best race because I did every other aspect of the race flawlessly and had it not been for the mistake, I could have had the best placement of all my races.

JWOC Training

Samokov,Bulgaria

On July 2, I arrived in Sofia to train with Raphael, Emma and the US Team.

Sprint Model map.

Though I was the first one back from the mass start, it was not such a good race for me. Read more on my attackpoint log. Sunday, July 6.

First map that we trained on. Middle distance. Was really fast and slightly complicated. Going straight to each control usually works most of the time but you still want to look for another route that could be smarter.

Map from the day that we did the rwlatively hard track workout.

Italy

Alpe Adria Races

Asiago, Italy

The Alpe Adria orienteering races which also acted as Canada's WOC selection races, were a part of this year's trip that I will never forget as it was also the first time in my life that I raced competitively in the Elite category. This may seem like a big step for me in my orienteering career as it would for anyone, but because I feel that I had handled it so well and with such decent results for my age I almost wish that I had begun racing in this category last year. Otherwise all of the races were fantastic and unique in their own way to which I will proceed to describing immediately.

Starting off with the long distance, the race surprised all of us as it brought out a relatively technical side of itself throughout its duration as we expected something more hilly. I did the beginning better as I followed my plan but then things started falling apart after I made a mistake on the first long leg (#9) because I began rushing. The rest of the race went down hill as I continued trying to make up lost time. That resulted in unecessary and sometimes stupid mistakes. But the important thing was was that I learned from it and relayed that in the middle.

In the middle, map wise I feel that I did a fantastic job. I made a very small number of mistakes which were 2. The first was because I took a risk through a complicated part to #7 (a bad bearing and running fast) planning to relocate on the path

Europe 2014 - Summary #1

Jet lag this year wasn't a problem as we began our tour in Venice by walking around on the intracate sprint map that I have decided as the best that I've ever ran on. After the firstday Damian and I got right down to running and I planned out a 27 km course that night while I was being called 'crazy' the entire time by Damian. We ran it and I almost finished it, fell short 2 loops at the end. I bailed at the end because of two things, first the fact that my legs were burning insanly and I was having a little trouble still walking, and then because as I attacked the 44th control (which Damian also said was the hardest) I missed it and relocated beyond it about four times until I had to go to a giant church to make sure I knew where I was. From there I made it but was discouraged and reasoned out that if I was making such bad mistakds then there wasn't any more pojnt in finishing the course. Damian finished and was a little cross that I didn't. Otherwise that was the best srint map I've ever run on and I am glad that I ran as much as I could on it.

My 27 km invention.

Next we began our journey to Censuna a small town 10 min away from Asiago. On the way we stopped on a sprint map in Vincenza that had an okay course which I would have modified if I had had more time.

Bus stop run.

Once we arrived in Censuna we spent the next few days going to Asiago and running on a fantastic map literally in our backyard, Kubelek. In Asiago we made an 8ish km sprint course that relatively enabled us to memorize the town, and we ran that course on the second day. On the third day we both went out onto Kubelek on which I also made a relativly long and loopy course on the map that took me six hours to finish because I was saving myself and I also got caught in a massive shower of rain that ended up drenching me and my map becaue I stupidly forgot to put the map case back on after drawing the course the other day. The map was full of little intracite rocks, cliffs and trenches that definately were a good wake up call for coming back to Europe and helpful for beginning to sharpen my map reading skills. We stayed on the map for one more day after that before Toni Louishala (canadian WOC coach) came to pick us up.

The WOC training was great as we got to be on an alternate map every day even with our own personal 'backyard map' behind the hotel. We ran on a variety of maps experiencing different terrains and oracticing all three disciplines, sprint, middle, and long.

Rafter Six Ranch Training

June 9

Sundre Training

June 8

Went out to Sundre to run on a newish map that hasn't been really used since 2008 either because of the mosquitoes or that it was really hard.The map was extremely good and I had a good training. Lots of mosqitoes that forced me to bail back to the car down a cutline during the end of the run.