Blog

NZ Champs Mega-Post

I wanted to recap my performances at NZ Champs last weekend and also dive deeper into a few navigation concepts.
Points Per Minute

In Nav Chat #3: December 2020 I explained a method for analysing rogaine performance using the idea of points per minute. I shared some of my conclusions from my brief analysis but didn’t spend much time explaining how I prepared the numbers. So here I will go a little bit deeper. In order to do…
The Missing Season

Since most of the 2020 season was wiped for everyone, opportunities to catch up and write race reports have been slim. But, even as orienteering and running races come back online, I still find myself on the sidelines. I’ve sadly been injured since December 2019 and I haven’t been able to solve the problem that…
3 Points on Long Distance Orienteering

It’s taken a little while to put pen to paper, but I think I have a valuable story that I didn’t want my readers to miss out on. In October I travelled to Australia for Oceania Orienteering Championships as a member of the NZ Pinestars team and as the coach of the NZ Secondary Schools…
WOC 2019 Build Review

2 weeks ago I competed at my 5th World Orienteering Championship, this time in Norway, focusing on my preferred race (the long distance), and also racing in the relay. It’s taken me two weeks to release this because this post was a little niggly for me. I’d much rather be sharing positive vibes and I’ve…
WOC Long 2019

Earlier this month I raced my 4th long distance at WOC. After being very sick for this race in 2016 and 2018, and discovering over training in 2017, I was aiming for revenge, but fell well short of the mark. In this post I’ll dive into the course, but to discover the success and failures…
Learning a New Terrain

I left Uppsala with no sign of any injuries (part of the plan), but overtrained (not part of the plan) and headed to Fredrikstad in the south eastern corner of Norway, not far from where I stayed in Halden prior to WOC in 2016. WOC this year is being held in hills just north of…
Training in Uppsala

I last visited Uppsala in 2014, and have always wanted a chance to go back. I seized the opportunity to head across the water to Sweden after World Schools Orienteering Champs to do some truly world class orienteering, but also some training other than orienteering. I was hoping these two weeks in Uppsala would give…
WSOC Mega Post

Here’s a look at my experience with World Schools Orienteering Championships in Estonia. In this longer that usual post I’ll take a look at my approach to preparing the athletes both in New Zealand and in Estonia, what we can learn from the results, and also how I capitalised on the opportunity to do my…
The Art of Tapering

My fourth ultra went off with a bang, a satisfying redemption after Kepler Challenge in December where I was unavoidably under-trained and Tarawera Ultra last year where I was disappointingly over-trained. This time around I had almost everything dialled in and I let loose on race day to take 1st place in this 50km trail race in a…