In this issue:

1. Upcoming Events
2. Club Trip to CD Champs
3. Club Member Profile - Cameron Tier
4. Mapping Project Identified - seeking expressions of interest
5. Course Setting Competition
6. Seeking SI’s
7. ONZ Junior Camp and U23 Camp
8. Coaching Corner
9. NZSS Championships
10. International Events - including write-ups from JWOC and WUOC
11. Introducing a Visiting Swedish Orienteer

Upcoming Events

Please note some of these are changes of dates to fit in with Woodhill Forest felling schedules - including new (earlier!!) date for NWOC Club Champs.

9 September AOS 8 Telephone Track NWOC Club Champs and shared lunch.

23 September AOS 7 Whites Line

30 September Rescheduled AOS 5 at Massey University 

Club Trip to CD Champs - Rotorua - 2- 4 November

You should have received an earlier email about this trip. If you did not get around to registering, but are keen to come along (heavily subsidised accommodation!) there are still some cabins and dorm room beds available. Please email Kaye Griffiths on kaye@griffiths.gen.nz asap if you are interested as we will have to let some of the pencilled accommodation go by the end of August.

For those who registered, we have managed to give everyone their first or second choice of accommodation type. If you have not already done so, please pay your deposit 

 of $80 per person up to a maximum of $200 per family. 

Please note that payment of this deposit also indicates your acceptance to pay the balance of the accommodation costs whatever that amounts to once the Rogaine Series subsidy is decided.

Deposits are payable to our North West Account WESTPAC 03-0243-0247251-000.
Please include your name in the reference field and use CD2018 as the code.

Club Member Profile - Cameron Tier

Number of years orienteering?
10 years

How were you introduced to orienteering?
My brother got me into it when I was in intermediate but didn’t compete much till high school

Key orienteering achievements to date?
JWOC team 2014 and 2015, 2nd M21E Oceania sprint 2017, 2nd sprint and 3rd Long at Nationals 2018

Current orienteering project or goal?
Training towards WOC 2019 and 2020, developing my body to cope with high training loads and training consistency 

Favourite map and why?
Hogsback, mapped by Nick Hann and one of NZ's best forest maps. I love native forest that is rough under foot and has mixed runnability. It’s so beautiful to run through and is also surrounded by other cool maps

Map you have yet to experience but aspire to orienteer on?
Lunsen, Sweden - Tremendous hype from Matt Ogden and a highly technical terrain 

Orienteering hero?
Thierry Gueorgiou and Tommy Hayes

Day job?
Burger King and Mapping. Hopefully engineering in the future!

Other interests?
Currently delving into tattooing, psychology, and psilocybin as a treatment for mental illness and well-being improvement. 

Mapping  Project  - Expressions of Interest invited

Our North West Mapping Subcommittee has identified  exciting terrain in the Kaukapakapa area that's suitable for a new map for Club events.

The area is flat to hilly gully/spur farmland, with many water / stream features and numerous clumps of trees and includes a scenic area with views from the high point of both coastlines. The area also has blocks of native bush, which at least initially we will not attempt to map in detail. The area is in the order of 2 square KM. 

Our aim is to have the  new map completed for use for events  in our 2019 programme.   

We invite expressions of interest from  Club members who are interested in undertaking this work over the upcoming spring/summer months.  Lidar contours and aerial photos are available as a starting point in the mapping project. NWOC will supply OCAD mapping software. 

North West Club requires the area to be mapped to IOF specifications .   While this a job for a specialist mapper there is the opportunity to also involve orienteers who would like to gain mapping skills.  

We wish to grow our pool of young/new mappers and we see this as an opportunity for a keen orienteer to accompany an experienced mapper at least for part of the project so they can  start to learn the intricate skills of mapping. 

If you are interested in undertaking this work or you are a keen orienteer interested in learning the art of mapping, please contact northwestorienteering@gmail.com for more information.

Course Setting Competition

Fancy having a go at setting a course? Do we have the opportunity for you!

Coming soon - the inaugural NWOC course setting competition. Suitable for any levels of experience, even if you have never set a course before - training will be offered! 

Details coming soon - watch out for the email!

Seeking SI’s

NWOC is planning to purchase more SI’s to have on hand for hire and to run large scale events. 

We thought there may well be quite a lot of old version SIs lurking in the bottom of people’s O bags or gear cupboards! If this sounds like you, and you feel like donating them to the club, please email Annemarie on northwestorienteering@gmail.com 

ONZ Junior Camp and U23 Camp

Junior Camp will take place 15-20 December in Hawkes Bay.

U23 Camp will take place 8-13 December in Wairarapa.

A link to online application form will be posted on ONZ website very soon and applications will be accepted until the end of September.

https://www.orienteering.org.nz/news/orienteering-nz-junior-and-u23-training-camps-2018/

Coaching Corner

With Matt away overseas competing, Geoff Mead has sourced some "Coaching from the Couch" links from WOC to keep us all working on improving our orienteering while enjoying the feast of spectating.

http://news.worldofo.com/2018/08/11/woc-2018-long-maps-results-analysis/

http://news.worldofo.com/2018/08/07/woc-2018-middle-maps-results-analysis/

http://news.worldofo.com/2018/08/05/woc-2018-sprint-men-big-gps-analysis/

NZSS Championships

Congratulations to the following who made podium at this event in July:

Y7/8 Boys
Sprint 1st Taiga Kato
Long 3rd Taiga Kato

Junior Girls
Long 3rd Sophie Ryan

Senior Girls
Sprint 3rd Jessica Sewell
Long 3rd Jessica Sewell

Intermediate Girls Standard Long
3rd Chelsea Sampson

International Events

Over the last couple of months a number of NW members have been competing overseas.

This last week we have been spoiled for choice between supporting WOC athletes (including NWOC members Gene Beveridge, Matt Ogden and Cameron de L’Isle) in Latvia and JWMTBOC athletes (including Tegan Knightbridge)  in Austria. We will hear more fully from them on their return - hopefully in the next newsletter. Meanwhile if you have not already read Gene's and Matt's blogs you can check them out here:

http://genebeveridge.co.nz/

https://mogd001.wordpress.com/2018/08/14/woc-2018/

Result of our NW athletes in these recent events:

WOC - Latvia

Sprint Relay (including Cameron de L'Isle) 12th
Middle Matt Ogden 60th
Middle Relay (including Matt Ogden) 17th
Long Matt Ogden 39th, Gene Beveridge 49th

And of course the excitement of a Silver Medal by Tim Robertson!

JWMTBO - Austria

Middle Tegan Knightbridge 24th 
Long Tegan Knighbridge18th
Sprint Tegan Knightbridge 19th

And earlier in the European Summer:

World Masters MTBO Championships

The World masters MTBO Championships were held in Hungary also over the end of June, beginning of July. In probably the most impressive series of results ever by a Kiwi, Marquita Gelderman won gold in every single race in the W50 class – mass start, sprint, middle and long distance! Additionally, Rob Garden took silver in the mass start and long distance, and bronze in the middle. Seven medals in one international event is certainly the most successful results ever seen by New Zealand runners/riders! We are so proud of them!

World Masters Orienteering - Denmark

Great results from Marquita Gelderman  -  5th in middle, 8th in long in W50.

JWOC - Hungary

Exciting to watch our four young junior men in action on the world stage.

Results as follows (out of approximately 160 men).

Long
Max Griffiths 70th
Daniel Monckton 108th
Callum Hill 129th

Sprint
Cameron de L’Isle 53rd
Max Griffiths 67th
Daniel Monckton 72nd
Callum Hill 96th

Middle
A Final (60 men)
Max Griffiths 41st
Cameron de L’Isle 42nd

C Final (52 men)
Callum Hill 5th
Daniel Monckton 6th

We asked them to write an analysis of one of the events and amidst busy post JWOC schedules they filed the following:

JWOC Long Distance  by Daniel Monckton

The first race of the JWOC week was the Long Distance and, as its name suggests, it was long, having been the longest ever JWOC long distance to date at 15.6km for the men and 10.2km for the women (I ran 18km+).

The terrain included both fast-open sections of forests and more intricate open areas. The first part of the course took us through a mixture of multiple “blocks” of different types of forest that were separated by quite a few tracks and open areas, including one long leg from 3-4. The second half included one tricky area with green (thick bushes) used for a butterfly loop and some legs through some nice open scattered trees. Some parts of the course you had lots of features to use to navigate including vegetation, tracks and clearings but other parts you could only navigate with contours.

The terrain was super flat (scale 1:15,000 with 2-metre contours), so major route choice wasn’t necessary as there weren’t any big hills, so straight as possible was the fastest route. For me, the terrain felt a lot easier than it first appeared. Having multiple different types of forests, it felt obvious which “block” you were running in. The first part of the course included many features that could be used to navigate from, including lots of tracks and clearings as catching features. The trick was to run as straight as possible on a compass bearing and break down the leg into stepping stones that you would ‘tick off’ and use these attack points as you went. In each block of forest, I took a bearing to the corner of a block and sometimes I would veer off a little to the left so when I hit the edge of the block I know to turn right to get to the attack point (in-case my bearing was inaccurate) to reset my bearing for the next one. If you lost focus of exactly where you were, it was a little difficult to relocate, but you could always run out to the edge of the block and use it as a handrail to the corner and go from there. Here, I have drawn my route in red and have highlighted a few points that I ‘ticked off’ along the way (marked with the purple circles).

Then there were a few legs more in the open with small areas of light green. Some blocks of larger green were useful attack points, but I switched my navigation to mostly using the contours instead of the vegetation. The open area was obviously a lot faster and had better visibility than the areas of green, but in some places the green wasn’t too bad. Other places it was difficult to get through. The large darker areas of green especially around control 6 felt slow. But since I was a late starter, there were lots of tracking from runners through the legs 6-8, and it was easy to get through some areas of dark green. Afterwards, there was a fast loop with controls 9-11 in a super open white block of forest.

Later in the course, there was a butterfly loop. Half of the runners went one way around the circle and the other half went the other way (alternating start-times) – this was designed to help space runners out. This area proved quite tricky as the patches of dark green were impenetrable, so you had to find a way around them. This meant it felt like you never approached the same control again from the same direction, making it seem a lot harder. I found getting to the control circle straightforward but finding the control point was a little challenging as some were hidden a little among the green.

By the end of the course, I was getting pretty tired, so my pace had dropped quite a bit. The last loop after the spectator included a part in some open scattered trees which required some more contour-only navigation (especially 25-26), but the visibility was excellent, so it wasn’t so bad. Also, the loud cheering from the arena made the last push through the final controls a lot more rewarding.

Overall, I had a pretty clean race but not having much experience racing that distance in the heat, I struggled with my speed throughout the course, but overall was happy with how it went.

JWOC Sprint by Callum Hill

Only a day after the gruelling 15km long distance, the Sprint did a stellar job of punishing our already aching and battered legs. Tensions were high, and this was exacerbated with the disqualification of the Russian team for breaking embargo, reminding us that this really was a big deal. This was JWOC after all, and on the world stage we could not afford a lapse in speed or concentration even if we were braindead, broken and baking in the Hungarian sun. Accordingly, preparation went on as usual and the adjoining model map from days prior gave us an invaluable insight into what was to come. Supplementing this with hours spent on Google Streetview and a surprisingly good attempt at mapping an area we had never before set foot on, the team felt ready heading into the second race.

The Sprint was set in Kecskemét, a beautiful Hungarian city that did a marvellous job of showcasing some of Hungary's old churches, gardens and fountains. As such, it felt like a town set with a relatively simple architecture conducive to a flat fast race and lacking the distinct technical intricacies often found on NZ maps. However, this was made much more technical through well-planned use of the more difficult areas and the strategic use of artificial barriers to complicate longer and more convoluted legs.

This was highlighted around controls 5-10 which involved a lattice of verandahs, railings and bridges in a multi-storeyed mess. While this did not make for overly difficult route choices as such, significant time could be lost in taking the wrong route. Furthermore, the extensive use of artificial barriers made many more route choices feel increasingly artificial. This meant that some routes along main roads and down alleys that at a glance appeared faster, were made considerably longer or even truncated into dead ends by these 'fake fences'. Because of this, you could not rely on instinct alone - extra effort had to be made to methodically examine each leg before the truly quickest route could be determined. Decisions that first appeared as a small matter of left versus right quickly compounded into substantial time that could be made or lost by reading some of these barriers. Yet simultaneously, the legs that were simple were both simple and fast and so confident execution of these could be used to catch time. Therefore, the race quickly became a balancing act between focused thoughts and forward planning against pace and confidence.

Furthermore, because of the sheer size of the event, even simpler controls and areas could encourage mistakes resulting to the masses of spectators and noise, or nerves going unchecked on the world stage. For a relatively young and inexperienced team, the Kiwis raced well beyond their weight range and pulled some stunning results. With Joe slotting into 15th, Cam 53rd, Max 67th, Daniel 72nd and a humble 96th for me, we certainly beat our expectations and went into the rest day with our heads held high. Overall it was a tricky race with even trickier competition.

JWOC Middle Distance by Max Griffiths

The middle distance race at JWOC was held on the infamous map in central Hungary called Bocsa. Known for it’s impenetrable green bushes, it requires maze like navigation and very little opportunity to switch off mentally and technically.

The middle distance is the only race at JWOC that has a qualification race, with 3 heats, each of roughly 55 runners, with 2 runners from each nation in each heat. The top 20 from each make it through to the A-final the next day. The qualification race was held on the same map, but on a slightly different area which has a lot more white forest (similar to Woodhill) with pockets of green juniper bush mazes. This terrain was not quite what we were all expecting however as soon as I picked up my map, I knew I was going to need to attack the course fast when possible, while still being careful with my fine navigation into the more complex areas.

See the middle map here. The first few controls are where a lot of runners, even some of the favourites made significant errors, as the control sites were very hidden, and accurate navigation to within a few meters of the control was required. I flowed well through the first few controls and used the white forest, and my familiarity with running through it, to my advantage. I made no execution errors in this race, and my only time loss was due to deliberate hesitations to ensure I did not have any blowouts. This type on mentality going into a qualification race was one that I was unsure how I would handle but overall was very happy with how I approached this race to qualify 11^th in my heat.

The middle final was a completely different type of race, despite having the same quarantine and event centre, it used an area slightly further north, in the more well-known labyrinth terrain. 

This terrain was much more similar to the training we had done the previous week (here). To move through this terrain efficiently but accurately requires a very high level of focus, especially in simplifying the crazy amount of information displayed to you on the map. As I hit the start line, nerves were running pretty high, but I attempted to convert that into energy while maintaining composure in this technical terrain. 

My race wasn’t the cleanest but also with no serious blowouts. The first two thirds of the course were all based in the highly technical juniper labyrinth, and my mind was clearly showing this in choosing to take a very safe route to number 10 on the track, losing a fair bit of time, but also allowing a mental break to reset before the final section of the course. See my map here and see how I ran some of the legs and what you would use to navigate through this maze. This was the most technical middle distance I have ever encountered and was overall pretty happy to finish 41^st in the A final at my first JWOC.

http://www.numberoneaucklanddoma.com/maps/show_map.php?user=Max&map=1721 (qual)

http://www.numberoneaucklanddoma.com/maps/show_map.php?user=Max&map=1685 (training)

http://www.numberoneaucklanddoma.com/maps/show_map.php?user=Max&map=1720 (final)

WUOC - Finland by Heidi Stolberger

Results
Long: Heidi 64th, Tegan 73rd
Sprint: Heidi 76th, Tegan 83rd
Middle: Tegan 58th, Heidi 76th
 

Between the 14^th and the 22^nd of July, a fairly small contingent of Kiwi’s travelled to Kuortane, a small town in Western Finland, to compete in the World University Orienteering Champs.

For me this was the first-time racing in Europe and was definitely the hardest competition I had run so far, with many of the competitors being past JWOC medalists or travelling on to compete in WOC… And so with all new experiences there are bound to be many challenges too.

I just want to take some time now to point out some of these challenges and share some of the things I got out of this fantastic experience I was given.

• We arrived in Finland to a heat wave with temperatures reaching 32 – 33’C for most of the race days, and with the expected high being 24’C many of us were now wishing we had invested in the new white Oshirts.
•  For each event you are only allowed 4 runners from each country in the grade and as most countries sent 6, a lot of the other competitors did not take part in every event. So, with only 3 of us it meant we would be running all of the races and with no rest days officially scheduled in for the week, we were looking at a difficult few days.
• Finnish forests are very different to anything I had ever experienced before. The way they map features and just the general vegetation differences were huge, and it definitely took me longer to wrap my head around many of the differences than some of the others. The first thing I noticed was how different the mapping of the vegetation was. The forest was often quite sparse making it hard to tell the clearings from forest, with a lot of rock features, blueberry bushes (which were ripe and tasted great), and marshes (although dry and relatively difficult for me to pick out from the normal undergrowth). Secondly, white forest in Woodhill and white forest in Finland are two vastly different things, it took some time to figure it all out but, in the end, the easiest way of looking at it was to make all the colours a shade darker, white meant light green and light green meant dark green in most of the areas.
• While the Finnish forests were physically very draining the obstacle I had to tackle first was a mental one… The GPS trackers! I had never worn one before and honestly the thought of wearing one all week was quite daunting. Having in the back of my mind that everyone could see me making mistakes before I even knew I had made them was definitely a hard thought to ignore. My middle distance was the first time properly competing and running in Finnish forest, and both mentally and physically I just was not prepared… and it showed. But as the week progressed things finally started to make sense and fit together (although I was still very slow through the terrain).
• The final challenge came in the form of long quarantine waits, with hours sitting around and not much to occupy yourself, it was often difficult not to get distracted or psyched out by the other athletes. With all the Kiwi’s starting in different start blocks and times, we often had long periods of time with no familiar faces, and while boring it was also the perfect opportunity to meet new people and some awesome friendships were started on the lonely bus rides between quarantines.

Yes, there were a lot of challenges to face over not just the week in Finland but the entire month I was in Europe. But I have come away from it with a wide range of advice and tips passed on from legends like Tim, Matt, Lizzie and Ross as well as some things I discovered myself. One of the key bits of advice from Ross that definitely saved me during the week was “Strap your ankles!” the ground underfoot was often very rough with small rocks and holes everywhere, made even more treacherous by the thick blueberry layer hiding them.

Along with a new found love for European summers, the long evenings (the sun set at 11pm and rose at 3.30am, however it never really got dark) and 3+ daily lake swims with the team, I also have a reignited passion for the sport and made so many amazing new friends from all over the world along with some unforgettable memories that were made with them.

I know this is long, but it is only a fraction of what I want to say.

Finally, below is the long leg (~ 1.8km, maybe slightly longer of slightly shorter) from our 10km long distance course (the longest I had raced before). At the beginning of this leg I was very grateful for the ice-cold sponge baths and water they had placed along the road for us, and after leaving one of the drink stations I decided I needed more water before I could carry on, so made a detour to pass by the other one. After this I tried to take it fairly straight, breaking it down into sections with big features like the open patches and road as stepping stones, passing many of the features I had run past earlier in the course. Unfortunately, as I got close to the control I began to get a bit tired and seeing another girl close by I lost my focus and drifted off just before I hit the control. Other than that, I was fairly happy with the leg and the majority of the course, with only a few small mistakes compared to the disaster of the middle distance a few days prior.

I am sure that many of the others who travelled and competed over seas in national teams will agree with me that the amount you learn and the confidence gained from a trip like this is huge and I strongly urge anyone who is given the chance to go and run in Europe or Scandinavia to take the opportunity and make the most of it. You will learn so much from it and get to see and experience a whole new level of orienteering as well as make friendships for life.

Introducing a Visiting Swedish Orienteer

Hi,

My name is Ophelia and I am an 18 year old Swedish orienteerer. I will be traveling to New Zealand in November and hope to make new friends and learn as much as I can about kiwi culture. I plan on staying for about four or five months, potentially longer.

Based on past experience with different school-exchanges in France for example, I feel that the best way to get to know a culture is to live with local family. Therefore, I am ideally looking for a family to stay with for some weeks. Of course, I would also like to orienteer or just hang out, if someone is interested.

Well, I should introduce myself properly. Apart from my interest in orienteering, I am curious as a person and always eager to learn new things and try to see things from different perspectives aside from my own. My persona is quite the creative one, with hobbies such as drawing, painting and crafting. Apart from these, I like reading (mostly fiction-books but also biographies, I currently finished Memoirs of Geisha) as well as being active and outdoors. I grew up in the countryside, so I guess that comes naturally.

I look forward to hearing from you,

Ophelia   

(Contact info: ophelia.almqvist@gmail.com)