I’m pretty relieved to get the 2 day journey to O-Ringen over and done with without a hitch. I left New Zealand on Thursday night and arrived in Stockholm 29 hours later after flying through Los Angles and Munich. I had short stops in both cities and this could be the fastest trip I’ve had to Europe. But the travelling only finished after a 4 hour drive to Kristianstad with IFK Lindigo runner Anders Calsson.
I have taken very few measures to overcome the jet lag I will experience over the next few days mainly because of inflexibility around work. In the past I have changed my sleep cycle by up to 5 hours while still in NZ making the transition to the new time zone much less severe. I would also like to have tried to adjust eating and light exposure times – a strategy I haven’t tried in the past. However this was very difficult with the timing of meals and lighting on planes being inflexible. As I am racing ridiculously soon after arriving in Sweden I also had to ensure I got enough sleep so that I am not too tired to race well. This means that taking opportunities to have short naps during Swedish daytime hours could be a good thing for my performance during my first races although it may slightly delay my complete adjustment.
As usual I’m determined to not let jetlag affect my mental and technical performance. However, I must be accepting if I find my brain is fried and not be hard on myself if I’m doing all I can to orienteer as well as I have been in New Zealand over the past month.
Tomorrow I look forward to getting a run on the O-Ringen training map to tune my navigation to the Swedish terrain as much as possible before racing on Sunday. I have raced here many times before and understand the most important techniques in theory, but to perform well in a race situation I need to hit the start line knowing what the terrain will feel like, not just look like. This year I am racing H21L (M21 long) which consists of 4 12k long and a 6km middle distance with the last long being a chancing start. This is a format I really love and to complete the whole week (assuming one is racing ok) is extremely rewarding. O-Ringen is also very social and if the weather is good it will be a week in heaven more me!
I will try my best to get my GPS routes up on my DOMA page as soon as possible after each race.