Night "O"/HSH Cup

     Yesterday night was a night “O” at CECHRICE which was very challenging.  My course H21 was 8.2 km. It was raining and fairly chilly which added to the challenge of orienteering at night. I found it hard to read the map while running and plan ahead because you have to navigate from 10m ahead of you at most. Luckily I got to use a friend’s headlamp that was way brighter than mine so that made it easier to orienteer than if I had to use my dinky one. It was a good race besides being slow and unsure in spots and one not so great route choice on the long leg at the end but that was partly because my map was wet and falling apart. I placed 4^th out of probably 27 runners.

     Today was Stage 1 of the HSH Cup near Vysočina which was a middle distance at SPORYS. It was another great race for me where I maybe lost 1 min total, spread out on a number of control. I believe I placed 15^th out of 50 runners in a very strong H21E category. Results will be here when they are available: http://www.obchrast.com/nz.php?nzid=977&co=6

Tomorrow is a long distance and should be another great race. My course will be around 11 km but it is very flat and fast, so it shouldn't be too painful.



Night Race July 11,13

Stage 1 HSH Cup July 12, 13

Train on,

Damian

Olomouc Training Camp

     For the past four days I was training around Olomouc with some Canadian and American juniors. It was a great few days of training as I got to train on some of the maps used for WOC 2008. Since I have arrived in Europe I have been orienteering everyday which is starting to catch up with me. I am feeling pretty tired but today is kind of a rest day until tonight when I have a night race which is going to be 8.2 km. I hope my dinky light will be sufficient because I don’t think they make the courses easier here in Europe for a night O. After the night O I am racing in the HSH cup Friday (middle distance), Saturday (long distance) and Sunday (chasing start/longer middle) near the town of Vysočina. After the HSH Cup I am travelling back to Trebon for some training and then I am driving to Slovenia for the Bubo Cup and OOCup.

 

 

Training #1 Sunday AM

Training #2 Monday AM

Training #3 Monday PM

Training #4 Tuesday AM (WOC 2008 Middle Qualification)

Training #5 Tuesday PM (WOC 2008 Middle Qualification)

Training #6 Wednesday AM

 

 

Train on,

Damian

End of JWOC Tour

      JWOC and the JWOC Tour wrapped up today with the relay where both the women’s and men’s teams won gold which was amazing to see.

 

     Stage 4 was at Certovy Skryse and was a true middle distance. In short it was not a great race for me. It was a really tough map with tons of rock detail and many rocks that were not mapped because they were slightly too small.

     Stage 5 was a sprint in the town center of Hradec Kralove. I had a good race but sadly lost around 30s near the end because I miss read the impassible walls. I also might have chosen the wrong route here but it is hard to say since I made a mistake on the leg. I placed 7^th out of 47, 40 seconds back of first. It was raining lightly which made the cobblestone pretty slippery but it was a bigger challenge to avoid running into other competitors when reading the map as there were people running in every direction.

     Stage 5 was a chasing start, long distance race at Koliba. I started in 13^th spot but could have started around 10^th if I had made my start on time at stage 2. I ended up in 12^th passing one guy who started before me (the winner of the sprint distance). I placed 12^th on the stage and 12^th overall out of 46. It was a fairly clean race despite four 1 min mistakes. I am still happy with the race as it was tricky flat terrain.

     Tomorrow I am off to Olomouc for a training camp on the maps that were used for WOC 2008. We will have one training Sunday and two trainings a day until Wednesday. After that I am competing Thursday in the HSH Cup starting with a night race.

Stage 4 Certovy Skryse Middle 

 Results: http://www.jwoctour.cz/upload/live/tour/resultsclasss4.txt



Stage 5 Hradec Kralove Sprint

Results: http://www.jwoctour.cz/upload/live/tour/resultsclass.txt

Post race Hradec Kralove



Stage 6 Koliba Chasing Start Long 

Results: http://www.jwoctour.cz/upload/live/tour/resultss6.txt

JWOC Tour

     Yesterday was Stage 2 of the JWOC Tour at LESNI HRBITOV and was considered to be an extended middle distance. For the first time ever I missed my start. I miss read my bib and thought I started 10 minutes later than I actually did. I realized it and started 3:04 late. It was another good race until the end when I made some stupid mistakes and a slow route choice. It was not a very good run even if you minus the time I missed my start by.

     Today was Stage 3 at ZAVORA SEVER. It was considered to be a shortened long distance. Really rocky terrain that was difficult to run in and navigate to the right rock. It was a really good race considering how hard it was. I placed 7th out of 42. Tomorrow is a true middle distance race in the same type of terrain so it should be very technically challenging.

     Yesterday I got vaccinated for tick borne encephalitis which is a viral infection transmitted by ticks which apparently can be quite bad. There are lots of ticks here that are very small and hard to see to get off of you so I thought it was a good idea to get the vaccination. My arm was pretty sore today and I might have been a bit more tired than usual but I don’t think the vaccination affected my physical performance much, if at all.

JWOC Tour Stage 2 July 2, 2013


Stage 2 results: http://www.jwoc2013.cz/upload/live/tour/resultE2_class_final.txt

JWOC Tour Stage 3 July 3, 2013
 

Stage 3 results: http://www.jwoctour.cz/upload/live/tour/resultsclass.txt

European Tour

After arriving in Prague I raced the Czech middle distance championships the next morning and was very tired for racing. I ended up doing alright considering my situation. For the next week I was training twice a day in the northeast of the country in the area that JWOC is being held in. During the whole week of training I logged over 13 hours of orienteering for a total of over 80km! It was a tough week of training on some of the hardest and most enjoyable maps in Czech Republic. Today was the first stage of the JWOC Tour which was a long distance race on KOLCARKA. I ran H21E which was 12.5 km and 450 m climb. It was a nice day for orienteering and a fun map to run on. I had a very good race with almost no mistakes, if I had only just been able to see one control. I ended up in 8^th place out of 43.

Map +Route

Results:
http://www.jwoctour.cz/upload/live/tour/resultssplits.txt

Drabovna map

 

 

Not This Year

     After a strong start to the spring both with training and racing (Sage Stomp, Barebones) I have failed to qualify for this year Canadian WOC team. I was unable to attend the Canadian team trials due to moving complications which were held in the US in conjunction with their team trials. I do not agree with the way the team was selected because it was way too reliant on subjective criteria that can be altered anyway one wishes to. I hope this will be changed for next year so I am not trying to chase after elusive selection criteria.

     After failing to qualify for this year’s team I decided that my main goal this year would be to win the Canada Cup Elite Series. I am right on track to do just that after winning the first Canada Cup race (long distance) this May which was held at Sage Stomp near Kamloops, BC on the McQueen Lake map.

Results: http://www.obasen.nu/winsplits/online/en/default.asppage=table&databaseId=25628&categoryId=1&ct=true

Map/Route: http://orienteering.ca/doma/show_map.php?user=damian&map=420

 

 

Sage Stomp Podium

2013 Canada Cup Standings:

http://www.orienteering.ca/pdfs/2013/2013_CanadaCupEliteSeries_Scoring_May.pdf

2013 Canada Cup Schedule:
Yes-August 3-5 ~ Western Canadian Championship, Manitoba (sprint, middle, long)
Maybe-August 23-25 ~ Eastern Canadian Championship, St. John, NB (middle, long)
No-September 20-22 ~ Ottawa O-Fest, Ottawa, ON (combined Saturday/Sunday results)
Yes-October 11-14 ~ Canadian Champs, Hamilton, ON (sprint, middle, long)

     Instead of going to WOC this year I have decided to train and race in the Czech Republic which I believe will be a better experience. I will be leaving for the Czech Republic tomorrow to live and train there for just over 6 weeks.  After arriving in Prague I will drive to Trebon and stay the night. In the morning I will drive to Kuncice for the Czech middle distance championships on the weekend. I have scheduled orienteering training or racing almost every day for 6 weeks so it should be a great experience.

My Schedule:

21.6 Arrival in Prague
22-23.6 Czech Republic Middle Distance Championships- Kuncice: http://mcrkt2013.ssu.cz/?page_id=219

24-29.6 Training at Hradce Kralove
1-7.7 JWOC TOUR-Spectator races: http://www.jwoctour.cz/jwoctour

8-10.7 Training in Olomouc.
11.7 Rest day - Sokolnice - Brno
12-14.7 HSH Cup Tři Studně-Moravia:  http://www.obchrast.com/nz.php?nzid=950

15-17.7 Training around Trebon / Jindrichuv Hradec
19-23.7 Bubo Cup – Slovenia:  http://www.bubocup.com/

26-30.7 OOCup – Slovenia:  http://www.oocup.com/

1.8 Departure to Winnipeg- WCOC’s: http://www.orienteering.mb.ca/WCOC2013/

      I am flying back to Winnipeg on Aug 1^st just in time for the Western Canadian championships.  I hope to come back from Europe stronger than ever and hopefully it will show in my results and I hope to make it easy for next year’s selection committee for WOC. It should be an exciting summer of training and racing. Stay tuned for the latest on my trip.

My racing goals for this season:

Make the A final at the Czech Republic Middle Distance Championships????

Win all three races at WCOC’s

Gold in the Sprint at COC’s

Medal in the Middle and Long at COC’s.

Win the Canada Cup Elite Series.

 

Train on,

Damian

Season Ends with NAOC's

I am finally able to give everyone an update about my experience at the NAOC’s after being busy with school and my short track speed skating. It has almost been a month since the NAOC’s that were held in the Delaware Water Gap, PA. The NAOC’s was a great event to attend, great competition, great atmosphere and good organization. I was happy with my races considering the lack of orienteering I did since the COC’s in August. The middle was held on some awesome terrain that I really enjoyed, my result was almost awesome as well but made a poor route choice decision and paid for it really bad. The long was a very physically tough race; I did not have the speed at all and combined with small mistakes here and there made for a mediocre result. The sprint was fast and furious and I am the most happy with this race despite learning a new lesson, if you know you’re at the right control don’t bother checking the code because if you compare it to the wrong code you will lose over 1 minute and lose what could have been a medal for sure and possibly a gold. The relay was a great opportunity to practice a relay race since there are not many opportunities to race them. It was great fun until I could not find one of my controls, it turned out after running by it a few times within meters it was on the ground and that’s why I could not find it. Embarrassing for me and unfortunate for the organizers, questionable that the men’s results even got posted! It is really is too bad that it happened that way but it did. Overall the NAOC’s was a jammed packed weekend of great orienteering, great maps and tons of friendly Canada/USA competition.



Middle finish in the pooring rain.

Long finish.

Train on,

Damian