Michael Svoboda: A Week in Rauland

Previous to the arrival in Rauland, we first had to brave an entire 3 and a half hours of driving (or in my case, passing time on my ipod) a navigate the vast roads of Norway, with a GPS that told us where to go. Eventually we arrived at the location and settled in for what would apparently be the majority of the relevant training that we were about to do in relation to JWOC which was coming around the corner in roughly 2 and a half weeks. We tackled many maps, including ones such as Juvstal, Sauraai, and Krossen, which we were able to deduce as the most relevant maps in comparison to the older versions of the JWOC terrains that we had.

Sauraai (upside down, but right-side up from the direction that were were coming at it from)

Sauraai, the map with the most technical section just to the west side also contained one of the most relevant sections to the JWOC Middle and Long on the SE side. Here I first ran the preset JWOC training with flags, and had a slightly rough time on some of the controls. Nearly all of them I nailed yet I still had some glitches in my runs where I would lose contact due to an insufficiently detailed plan or because I took a route choice that was slower then the optimal one. One of the observational fact that I established during the time on this map, was that the marshes, especially the yellow marshes were very obvious and very fast. Someone said that "They were like highways on the map" (can't remember if that was me). Anyways they were a super obvious feature that you should usually use if it is in acceptable range of a route choice to a control that you are running to. They were very helpful for simplification of legs.

In the complicated section I learned that I cannot even jog through something that is so complicated and it is worth to do what I had done at the World Cup on the long (which was to stop, align features with the map, jog to one, then repeat) or just walk at a pace at which you can navigate accurately. I know that for JWOC, if I see something that complicated to slow down in that section significantly.

Juvstal

Juvstal was a great map to see what the marshes are like on a slight slope, and how vague can they actually get? The answer is that they can get tremendously vague if you start daydreaming, don't look at your compass for 7 seconds while running at a 5min/km pace down hill, or even second guess yourself at some point on the leg. Though the marshes can be very obvious, they can also get very tricky, therefore when navigating through them you need to be fully focused on what you are doing.

Killingnuten

This map was, I don't know, pretty boring I'd say? There were a couple route choice legs which usually involved going around certain features for long distances in order to avoid climb, but overall the navigational level that it comes down to was pretty basic. You had a nice view of the scenery around I guess. Otherwise it was not very relevant and it was also not very challenging for me.

Raulandsgrend

This course served two purposes: 1. To simulate running downhill and spiking boulders at high speed without making big mistakes. 2. To get some very nice pictures of the mountains and lake.