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Occassional thoughts about orienteering


Monday, January 09, 2006

First thoughts from the training camp in Hamilton

 

I'll probably write more in the coming days, but I thought I'd start by just listing a few thoughts.

Night O' in the Westdale area of Hamilton was a blast. The course was a mix of street and park O' terrain (with a couple of steep ridge and valley controls). You can't get much more fun that running night O'. I ran with a GSP and you can see my track at motionbased.com.

Sandy and Holger Hott Johansen both talked about their training -- very inspiring. They each described their training by telling a story, beginning with how they started orienteering and training, describing their most recent couple of years in more detail, and talking a little bit about what might be next.

By far the most surprising thing I heard was that Holger HJ seems to be able to turn his concentration on/off during a race. He said he wasn't one of those people who gets a song stuck in his head and can't get it out. That ability to turn concentration on/off must be a very useful skill for an orienteer.

Of all of the activities at the camp, the one I looked forward to the least was an after dinner presentation on nutrition. But, it turned out to be really good. Mark Tarnopolsky presented the info and managed to mix detailed research with practical advice.

As I was writing this, I Googled Tarnopolsky's name to make sure I got the spelling right. One of the hits was to a web page where students can rate their professors. Here is what a student had to say about Tarnopolsky:

He has really high standards for his students and himself... you should see his six pack!!He's hot. Smokin' hot!

I came away from the training camp even more convinced that Hamilton should be considered the Halden of North America. It seems like GHO has a great mix of folks and Hamilton provides good opportunities for O' training (like lots of nearby and varied terrain).

I left the camp with a good feeling about top level orienteering in North America. The people at the camp seemed positive and interested in getting better. It was good to see that the orienteers from the U.S. included a number of the younger orienteers who we'll probably be seeing at the next few WOCs; people like Samantha and Hillary Saeger, Suzanne Armstrong, John Fredrickson, Leif Anderson, and Viktoria Brautigam.

As I said, I'll probably write more over the next few days. But right now I'm tired after the training and the travel home.

posted by Michael | 7:31 PM

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