> Oliver Braun
Oliver Braun
Profiled August 2021
Oliver joined North West earlier this year and always enters the Red 1 (hardest course both technically and physically). Despite efforts by both the club secretary and president to persuade this unknown orienteer to consider starting off with a less challenging course on our new Riverhead map, Oliver stuck to his guns: “ It's been almost 23 years since my last orienteer but as I told Annemarie, I'm happy to lose on a red but certainly not on a yellow course, haha false pride.”
He has made great progress in just 6 months this year and will soon be challenging more experienced orienteers.
Number of years orienteering?
4-5 years- see reply below.
How were you introduced to orienteering?
So, I did my first orienting back in high school during a project week at the end of the school year about 1994-ish, but I really don't remember exactly. I only knew, I loved it straight away and I continued with the weekly orienteering runs until I left school 1998 and orienteering was even part of my final exams at high school, sport, was counting 1/6th of the grade. After my exam run yellowish/orangish without ever running with compass, I think it was about 11 controls on 9 km, no contours, which I finished in 40mins, 5mins left to not get A+.
My teacher back then tried hard to get me into the orienteering club, but I had so many other things to do and even though I liked orienteering I only wanted to do it for fun during school and after I didn't fit it into my schedule anymore.
My next run was this year after nearly 23 years in Woodhill forest, Temu Rd, Red 1, die hard DNF 23rd/30, taking 3 hours 20 minutes without water... I really didn't know what to expect.
Key orienteering achievements to date?
In High School we took part in the annual state school champs and at my first competition I came in first, guess that's my best achievement besides my final exam run. I took part in three or four school championships and except for one where I had a big space out, I was always somewhere at the top but just cannot remember anymore.
Current orienteering project or goal?
Now I just wanted to get back into cardio exercise and was looking for a map of Riverhead Forest as I just don't like road running too much and that's when I stumbled across NWOC. Straight away I thought that this is a great way to stay motivated, like I said, I loved orienteering straight away. So my goals are basically just getting fitness back together and aiming for less than 2 hours or even 1hour 30 Red 1 finishes, because I'm competitive after all.
Favourite map and why?
My favorite map in NZ so far was Turkey Ridge, I guess both maps from this years events simply because I could see and translate the terrain much better into the map and vice versa.
Map you have yet to experience but aspire to orienteer on? Orienteering hero?
No idea about a map I haven't run on yet and neither do I know anything about orienteering heroes. Sorry, I'm just having fun.
Day job?
I'm a self-employed lawn mower man, Lawn Mowing North West Auckland
Other interests?
Being a bhakti yoga practitioner, or in general terms being a Hare Krishna, is my main occupation, my spiritual journey, which, by the way, has nothing to do with physical yoga exercises. Nevertheless, I was teaching Ashtanga Yoga for some time as well. I love growing veggies and vegetarian cooking, my wife and myself have been hosting also regular vegan cooking classes before our daughter has been born and now we're still cooking once a week on a voluntary basis at the Loft Yoga lounge in the city.
The map Oliver helped fieldwork in his hometown in Germany in 1996
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