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 been sanity checking my situation with others before putting words down. I had been focusing on this race for 24 weeks, following one continuous training progression. This is a little dive into the successes and failures of this block including my current health problems.

Here’s a quick look at my training plan.

It’s very similar to my previous block, but with a slightly different mix of tempos, intervals, and reps, and without very long runs or nutrition focused sessions. I also included some terrain runs and of course more orienteering, largely due to the New Zealand orienteering season kicking off in April. I also had a month in Europe in May with lots of orienteering.

It seemed to start well with a reasonable return to a high level of fitness for NZ Champs in April, but in the subsequent months I struggled to break through to my previous highs of the past few years. I had one really strong week in June with some orienteering over Queen’s Birthday Weekend and logging a quick interval session the following week, but this form was short lived. My speed at all intensities dwindled from here on. In some cases, sufficient recovery would increase my speed but I could never shake the fatigued feeling for more than a single run.

I steered the course, trusting that my form would come right, but it never did. Historically, I have experienced short (1 to 2 week) periods of fatigue, usually followed by an increase in fitness if I do steer the course, but this period of fatigue was really starting to drag on. From mid June I began missing a few sessions per week as my fitness was not improving at same rate that my plan was getting more difficult. I was only just recovering from 11 hours of training and any more would have been unsustainable.

My taper towards WOC began with 2 very easy weeks before O-Ringen. I began the week at this baseline that I was waiting to rise above, only to find myself fatiguing more and more each race, and ultimately being unable to truly race the last stage. I felt extremely tired when running and my mind was just so cloudy and unfocused that navigating reliably was near impossible.

For the past 3 years I’ve eaten a diet low in animal products, and concern around this drove me to reintroduce meat for this final month before WOC. I was encouraged by a quick return to form after O-Ringen, but this single quick session seems to be an anomaly, as subsequent sessions got slower and slower, despite having a highly inclusive diet. It was also clear at this stage that my hands and feet were constantly achy as if I had a virus and my throat and nose were constantly congested. I’ve been seeing these symptoms more often over the past 3 years, but usually intermittently, not constantly like on this occasion.

I was also hesitant to label this as over-training, as my previous examples of over training came with reduced sleep for weeks on end before my fitness began to suffer. These previous episodes also clearly featured difficulty sleeping as an obvious symptom of the overtraining. Neither of these were present on this occasion, until the last week before WOC, when I would take 60-90 minutes to get to sleep instead of the usual 10-20, and the sleep would be restless. A few nights during this period I also slept in excess of 10 hours, which is a little unusual, especially since my training load was so low in this period. Another red flag was raised when I realised that my libido had fallen through the floor.

I had another two easy weeks between O-Ringen and WOC with minimal time in terrain. Although I was well rested in this period, I was never able to shake the feeling of fatigue that would develop during any run, no matter how short. Usually, I would normally feel better as I warm up into a run, but it was very noticeable that I would feel fresh for just the first 5 minutes and gradually feel more sluggish from then on.

I started the WOC long feeling as fresh as I’d felt in the past 2 months, that is, still with that baseline of fatigue. Cramp at 90 minutes in hip flexors, calves and hamstrings was unusual. I was also hitting the wall at 95 minutes, just being propped up by a final energy gel. This was a notable step down in my endurance from the trail races I’ve become used to thrashing over the past 4 years. This did not cause any major time loss during the race, but I just noticed it as another red flag – an indication that something isn’t what it used to be under the surface.

I was extremely tired jogging the next day. From fresh, it should be multiple races before I felt that smashed. I say this with the experience of many 5-day competitions and overload training weeks under my belt. Yes, these competitions are hard, but I was flattened by this one race, less because of the race I suspect and more due to the underlying fatigue, or whatever it is. I felt very achy in my arms and legs this day too, as I would if I had a viral infection. Two weeks later this achiness has not subsided.

Two days of basically no training was still not enough to help me recover before the WOC relay and I started the race feeling exhausted, physically and mentally. My mind was a cloud of day dreaming and it’s a wonder how I got through the first part of the course without any mistakes. I really just stumbled onto the controls, but had no reliable navigation process. I was completely lost on the long leg to 6 and couldn’t make anything fit. My mind was just a big cloud of distraction with my internal voice narrating the current predicament over and over. I would relocate briefly, maybe check my direction, but as soon as my eyes returned to the terrain my internal voice would dominate my attention with hypotheticals or to narrate the situation. My concentration is shaky at the best of times, but this was full on.

I just had no room to breathe here. I wanted to drive my navigation technique forward with rational thought, but I simply was not in control of the switch from navigating to day dreaming. It just happened and I would find myself at some place in the forest without much of an idea about what I was doing. I suspect this happens to many people and I’ve definitely become more aware of it than most, but this day was the worst instance I’ve experienced.

It’s clear that my running itself is not extremely slow, just flat, and I’m still moving oxygen like a well-trained runner, but it’s the feeling of fatigue that matters here. It’s the complete loss of vigilance and directed thought that makes the difference. It’s like a cut in bandwidth and I suspect that many orienteers have experienced this at least a few times in long race.

One metric I use to measure concentration is a simple counting test while meditating. I meditate daily for a number of reasons and this counting test is something I do a few times per week. At some point in the meditation I will chose to focus on some aspect of the breath and count each breath until I become completely distracted by a thought. Usually I get to 50 or even above 100 before I find that I’m no longer paying attention to the breath, but in the weeks leading up to WOC I was struggling to make it past 10. My attention was getting hijacked by story thinking at the highest rate I’ve ever experienced since committing more time to meditation earlier this year.

In terms of a race report on the WOC Relay, I honestly don’t have much to discuss. I was barely orienteering and didn’t have the clarity of thought to make any interesting tactical decisions. Tim had a great race on first leg, coming in with the lead pack, and Toby had a good race on third leg, losing very little time to navigation errors, but losing some time on running speed. I, on the other hand, was a complete write-off and to be honest I don’t know if I have any way to prevent this from happening again until I figure out my health.

Starting with some blood tests, it is now my number one priority to tie all my symptoms together, the longer standing of which relate to my gut and recurring fungal infections that I haven’t even mentioned in this post.

I’m unsure at this stage how I will manage Oceania Champs in 4 weeks, and Kepler in December, it’s all dependent on what the doctors and I can uncover.