My first race at World Orienteering Champs is now done and dusted, and I will have my second this evening here in Scotland. I raced a very tight sprint qualification yesterday and unfortunately didn’t make it into the top 15 of my heat to get into the final. I was happy with my race which went very smoothly but I obviously don’t have the leg speed at the moment to get into the very exclusive final.
I didn’t feel overwhelmed at all about the magnitude of the competition or the calibre of my competitors. This shows that my race preparation has come a long way in recent times and I can consistently hit the start line with a good balance of intensity and calm. I think doing more high pressure sprint races like this will help me to push harder off the start line more autonomously, whereas currently if I am focused on navigation then naturally my running only gets up to about 95%.
I’ve drawn my route choices below. No execution mistakes but a few small choices that meant I was a little bit slower than my best possible time. Jan Kocbach’s analysis on World of O shows that even the tops qualifiers were not perfect in this regard.
Good luck to Tim, Imy, Laura and Lizzie who did make to the final to be held on Sunday evening!
Would you have saved time going to 1 heading nth around the olive green rather than heading south when you hit the open grassy area. I figured that that northern route might have cut a few seconds off. But as you say all pretty mistake free just not quite quick enough.
Good to hear the pre race composure is there.
Yea, looks like I missed that one. That is another 3 seconds.