Biala Rzeka-Last training in the Forest

Today we possibly had our last training in the forest as we are sprint training and resting the next few days. We were typical NZ orienteers getting completely confused driving to the actual map, some say we were saving our navigational skills for the training.
A few went for a jog around the tracks or in the open forest and some did a small course to gain that extra bit of confidence running through terrain. The forest was pretty fast although rather steep and a few small, green rough patches. We actually did a long training here on Sunday with a 1:15000 scale, but today we all used a 1:10000 map for middle style training.
We saw the Bulgarians training on the same map, and also Johanna (Swedish team leader) collecting in some controls which the Swedes must have been using, but we didn't even need controls because we are just so awesome ;)
We have some new friends at the hotel now. Denmark, Australia and Japan are all in Hotel Victoria with us, and we are expecting to see Belgium, Austria and Finland in the next few days :)
In the afternoon today, we had a 4 hour shopping trip in the Mall just on the edge of Rumia. It was very successful for finding all our Banquet uniforms (which look wicked!), much faster than last year.
Tomorrow we have our first sprint training in Poland, finally...so we shall update you on how that all goes tomorrow :)
We shall leave you with a few photos from the last few days....

James, Scott and Johnny(GB) out for a jog

Angela, Anna & Laura chilling out in the sun after training

Kate, Angela and Laura :)

Yesterday

Yesterday we went out training at Kapino with the focus of the exercise being middle distance race simulation. The map was quite green and had many different route choices that forced you to go through it. I wasn’t feeling too good so I skipped a few controls in the middle of the course. I ran the last few legs in the green and found that some of the tracks were very vague and hard to find and that generally the straight line route through the green was better. I was surprised at how fast you could run through the green but it is very difficult to read your map whilst running. At our team meeting we talked about this and found that it was faster to take the straight line routes through the green but often would be more difficult approaching the control. After lunch we went out to Borowo for relay training. James set the exercise so that it was mass start and you would race head to head for 4 to 6 controls and then wait for the rest of the group before racing through the next controls. There were splits out on the map and because you had the same split as someone the first control didn’t mean you would have the same one the next control. We put all our maps on the ground at the start and all started together.

Running into the finish of the first set of controls I tripped and my leg landed on a log. I had to walk back to the start because it was too sore to run on but hopefully it will get better in the next couple of days. After the others had finished we went swimming in the lake next to where we parked. The rest of the afternoon was spent playing air hockey and bowling against the Australians.

Tim

Training, training, training

The last few days have been full of training as we're trying to familiarise ourselves with this terrain. Most of the team have seemed to come to grips with the area pretty well and our general consensus is that it's easier terrain than the past 3 years - but it pays not to be complacent!

We had two trainings on Saturday, one being a middle training focusing on visibility and lines through the terrain and the other being a short control-picking exercise with a focus on exit direction. Despite the terrain seeming reasonably straight forward mistakes were still made and I particularly found that I was at risk when I wasn't strong on my compass, checking off spur directions, for example.

Yesterdays training was on a map which bordered the actual JWOC long distance map and we used the relevance to focus on route choice. We often met up at various controls to try out different routes. Were the long track routes faster than the steeper straight routes? There wasn't really a definite answer and it varied from leg to leg but the straight routes were generally still fast in this terrain, just more physical. The more time we spend on the maps the more the decisions should become instinctive.

Obviously, we haven't spent all our time just training though. We've spent heaps of time just chilling around the hotel. It's a pretty nice place and us boys have explored the hotel pool (with water slide, sauna and steam room!) and the 10-pin bowling alley. We were all pretty terrible though! The girls went into Gdansk yesterday for a look around and to pick up Anna's bag which has finally arrived. The Australians and Japanese have arrived at our accommodation with the Danish, Finnish, Austrian and Belgians still to come later in the week.

At the moment everyone is just lazing around the hotel (except for Toby and Laura sitting their exams - poor things!) and it's a beautiful day outside. I think we're planning on taking on the Aussies at 10-pin later so hopefully we can improve from the other night and smash them!

Anyway, we're all finally getting over the jet-lag and everyone is enjoying themselves.

Pozegnanie for now!

Written by Scott

Made It!

After 35 hours of travelling we made it to the hotel at 11 at night barely able to keep our eyes open. We had a much needed sleep and then it was time for our first experience of Polish food. Sausages eggs and a huge variety of cold meats and cheeses with breads – very similar to many other European countries. The was also some not so authentic cereal and yoghurt.

Down to business, it was time to get out in some Polish terrain to see what it was like. We had seen many maps before and seen pictures of the super -fast open forest but we still had to learn more about the tracks, rides, and the green areas. All the maps are really close to Wejherowo so after a short car ride listening to Flight of the Conchords, Nicola Manfriedi and many more on the JWOC CD with some amazing forest flashing by we were at our first training. The terrain here is amazing when coming from New Zealand because there are very few areas with limited runability. In white areas visibility can be up to 300m and the runability is super-fast. Nothing much underfoot to worry about which makes it easy to read the map on the run without tripping on anything. There is also a lot of green on many of the maps representing small trees (less than 2m high) or in some places a different tree that is growing much closer together. In most cases it is best to avoid these areas by using the fast open forest and tracks.

We’ve been having trouble getting the wireless working at the hotel, the reception isn’t good and it only seems to connect if we’re in the bowling alley café (yes our hotel has a bowling alley but the internet doesn’t work…) so hopefully we can get a few more posts up when we get the system working a little better. Watch this space!

Some super fast forest

Our first days training map

And we're online!

Finally, a blog! This is where we will be keeping you all up to date with our adventures in Wejherowo, Poland over the next few weeks. At the moment little has been posted... we are all training too hard to get near a computer... but come back soon for updates!

Peace.