So Southern O-Week was totally freakin’ awesome! The new terrains, the scenery, and the people! I’m busy getting my maps up on my DOMA page now and doing some analysis of my orienteering. There is a lot to look at as I was navigating relatively poorly in most races. It was my generally low level of concentration that was contributing towards bad bearings, not identifying good attack points and not planning ahead when I had the time.
I’m happy to finish on a high though, with a win on todays’ middle distance race on the stunning Bannockburn map, which was closely contested at the top. I had much better concentration and planning, and successfully slowed down in a number of places to maintain control. So I know I can do it, and I’ll be spending a bit more time orienteering before NZ Champs to sharpen up. I’m expecting to do a number of technical overdrive sessions, like control picking, to make the urge to maintain high levels of map contact more subconscious.
To summarise the week, I ran a total of 11:12 (hours:minutes), with 4:44 at race pace, 2:08 attributed to warming up and warming down and 4:20 in the mid-week “rest” day long run which was a mix of moving slowly up steep slopes, cruising down grassy meadows, running slowly though waist high tussock, and 1 massive descent on a trail. Close to 5 hours in one week at race pace is a lot and a week like this is definitely a type of overload week. This coming week acknowledges that my body needs time to recover and so is slightly lighter overall, but of course does feature a race, Tussock Traverse, next Saturday.
