JAFA 2018 was a wonderful weekend of orienteering that North West can be enormously proud of. Organising an event of this size (around 500 competitors each day) with some unique features such as the chasing start on Day 1, plus challenging weather conditions, is a massive undertaking and relies on a team of dedicated club members to make it happen. 

Around 85 club members were involved before, during and after the event and I am extremely grateful to everyone who helped make JAFA happen. From those with major roles; the course setters and controllers, to those who were there from before daylight to after dark setting up and packing down and to everyone who helped in between, thank you.

We have been rewarded with some wonderful feedback such as:

• Amazing attention to detail with signs and services
• Friendly, smiling, helpful people always ready to sort things out
• Love the lolly scrambles and the giant JAFA last control.

Well known Australian orienteer, Warren Key summed it up when he said, "it was challenging and unforgiving on world class maps".

Further on in the newsletter, there are reports from two competitors, which provide some more great insights to the event.

The final event in the 2018 Rogaine Series was held last Sunday. The rogaines are a North West tradition we can also be proud of. Huge thanks to Rob Garden and Marquita Gelderman who mastermind these events each year.

What next for NWOC? After the relay competition next weekend, we take a break now until our next event on 15 July. This will be an urban middle on the Massey Albany campus. Not a sprint - a longer, middle distance course on an urban map. I hope you'll come and give it a try - see you there.

Jenny Cade

President 

In this issue:

1. Upcoming Events
2. Club Relays
3. Europe beckons - WUOC, WOC, JWOCMTBO, JWOC
4. Congratulations on NZSS team selection
5. Club member profiles
6. JAFA
7. Welcome to new members
8. Coaching Corner
9. AOS July - change
10. NISS results
11. AKSS results
12. JAFA results

Upcoming Events (and some not so close, but worth noting)

24 June AOA Club Sprint Relays, Botanical Gardens, Manurewa (see details below)
15 July AOS 5 Urban Middle Distance, Massey University (note this is changed from Woodhill)
12 August AOS 6 Puketapu Road
…
NWOC Club Championships will be held on 23 September (Telephone Track map, Woodhill).
End of Year Dinner and Prizegiving will be  on 2 December.

AOA Club Sprint Relays 24 June

Hosted by: Counties Manukau Orienteering Club 
Date: Sunday 24^th June 2017
Venue: Botanical Gardens Manurewa, Everglade Drive Entrance. Courses will be between 2km and 4km.
Time: First start at 1pm. Registration open from 12noon, briefing at 12.30. Prize giving once results are available.  Approx. 2.30pm

You should have received an earlier club email asking you to email Allan Janes on o4life@orcon.net.nz if you are keen to help NorthWest regain the relay crown!

If you have not already done so, it is not too late - and we desperately need more runners in the Yr 8 and under category and the Over 60s. Please consider running, especially if you are in these age groups. Email Allan and include your SI card number, or if you do not have one, let him know that you need to hire one.

Europe Beckons - WUOC, JWOC, WOC, MTBOJWOC

Congratulations and Best Wishes to all the NWOC members who are travelling overseas representing New Zealand over the next couple of months. We look forward to cheering them on as we watch live results!

WOC

World Orienteering Championships to be held in Latvia in early August. 

Gene Beveridge (L,R), Cameron de L’Isle (S,SR), Matt Ogden (M,L,R)

JWOC

Junior World Orienteering Championships to be held in Hungary early July.

Cameron de L’Isle, Max Griffiths, Callum Hill,  Daniel Monkton

Reserve: Heidi Stolberger 

WUOC

World Universities Orienteering Championships to be held in Finland in July.

Tegan Knightbridge, Heidi Stolberger

MTBO JWOC

Mountain Bike Junior World Championships to be held in Waldviertel, Austria 5-13 August 

Tegan Knightbridge 

EYOC

European Youth Championships in Bulgaria at the end of June

Jessica Sewell 

NZSS Team Selection

Congratulations to the following NW Juniors who have been named in the New Zealand Secondary Schools Team selected to compete for the Southern Cross Trophy against the six Australian states and the Australian Capital Territory in the 2018 Australian Schools Championship in Adelaide in early October.

Liam Stolberger
Jessica Sewell
Olivia Collins (reserve)

Club Member Profiles

This time we profile two NWOC juniors who are heading away shortly to compete in Europe. 

Tegan Knightbridge 

Tegan is leaving soon for Europe where she is representing New Zealand at the World University Orienteering Championships in Finland in July and then at the Junior World Mountain Bike Orienteering Championships in Austria in August. We wish her well.

Number of years orienteering?
This is my 6th year.

How were you introduced?
I remember getting the Northcross Intermediate Prospectus and seeing “Orienteering”. I then proceeded to ask Mum what it was, she must have done a reasonable job selling it to me because I thought it sounded like a great idea and was keen to give it a go! After a fluke at the North Harbour Schools Competition I ended up at the Auckland Champs and spent a good 1.5hrs on what should have been a 20min course! After that debacle I was adamant that I was never ever doing this again! But next year came around and I gave the sprint series a go and never looked back!

Key Orienteering Achievements to date?
JWMTBOC 2018 Team and WUOC 2018 Team.

Current Orienteering project or goal?
My goal is to get to the point where I don't find running as difficult as I do now! 

Favourite map and why?
Cascades map in Queensland, I enjoy super technical maps and this one lived up to my standards! I had a good race and had a really fun time! But you can never look past Castle Hill or West Bay!

Map you have yet to orienteer on?
Trockener Steg is top of my list at the moment.

Orienteering Hero?
My Mum and how she manages to orienteer with glasses! But really Marquita Gelderman :)

Day Job?
Student at Auckland Uni.

Other Interests?
I am currently aiming for my PPL(Private Pilot Licence) and hope to get it by the end of the year!

Heidi Stolberger 

Heidi is representing New Zealand at the World University Orienteering Championships in Finland in July. We wish her well for her time in Europe.

Number of years orienteering?
It has been about 15 years or so. The first course I remember doing was early 2003, a summer nav at Panmure Basin. 

How were you introduced to orienteering?
My Grandfather, Bert. He dragged us around the country, often resulting in protest on my part.

Key orienteering achievements to date?
Being named in the WUOC team and reserve for the JWOC team.

Current orienteering project or goal?
To perform as well as I possibly can in the WUOC races, particularly in the sprint races.

Favourite map and why?
I have a few favourites but in NZ Hogsback in the South Island is definitely up there, it's in such a cool location and there are plenty of challenges that come along with it.
I also really liked the Kooyoora state park in Victoria, Australia. I love how beautiful and intricate it is and it is probably the most difficult map I've been on (even walking it as a model map with a group was difficult and proved how essential constant map contact is). 

Map you have yet to experience but aspire to run on?
I have always wanted to go to Switzerland so any map over there would be pretty cool... also the French maps look really neat and would definitely provide some challenges. 

Orienteering hero?
Again there are couple of stand out people. Firstly Matt, his drive and passion for the sport has always been an inspiration to me and I am very thankful for all the help and encouragement he has given me particularly over the last 6 months. My other inspiration was my late grandfather who amazed me with his eagerness to go out and get lost week after week even in to his 80's. He always tried to push us to our best and even though he's not here he still pushes me to be the best I can.

Day job?
Currently a geologist in the making at Auckland University. 

Other interests?
Football, Highland dancing, Music and anything with food.

JAFA

JAFA is over for another year and, as a club, we can be proud of the event we held! As Jenny has mentioned above, we have had huge amounts of positive feedback from those who came to compete. This was a huge team effort with so many NW members putting in time and energy.  

Jenny Cade’s ability to see the big picture but also pay attention to detail  make her an outstanding Event Director – we are lucky to have her! 

We asked a couple of people to write about the weekend - to give us general comments and to write specifically about one race. Below are contributions from Michael Croxford (Nelson Orienteering Club) and Max Griffiths (NWOC). 

The perspective of a visitor - Michael Croxford - Nelson Orienteering Club

It’s always a pleasure to come and orienteer in Auckland.  The events are run so well and officials are always friendly and welcoming. 

Over the last couple of years, Nelson’s contingent at the Queen’s Birthday weekend events has grown from a few hardy souls to nine juniors and four seniors competing this year. The team trialling for the New Zealand schools team included one Senior Boy and four Junior Girls, with the other four juniors still too young to be selected.

The terrain was excellent.  Unfortunately we don’t have similar terrain in the Nelson region for our juniors to train on. Our terrain tends to be greener and rocky. In those environments our kids excel, but it’s important to be able to navigate in all sorts of terrain. So travelling to events elsewhere in the country is an important part of broadening skill sets, especially with Auckland hosting the NZ Schools Champs next year.  What I love most about the maps in northern Woodhill is the variation in vegetation and dune formation.  Route choice comes into play, as well as map contact and concentration, especially with the constant changes in vegetation. 

Each day provided an interesting challenge.  I particularly enjoyed the courses on the first day set by Rob and controlled by Marquita.  The three changes in vegetation on Course 3 were fantastic and I had to quickly adapt between my navigation approach for each block.  Right from the start concentration was needed.  The low light and visibility during the first few legs was particularly challenging and after spiking the first two most technical controls I unfortunately took the time to look ahead on the map and made an error exiting the valley side-wall I was using as a handrail.  I climbed straight up the bank rather than sidle along my bearing and headed into the low-vis pampas grass on the wrong angle taking too long to reach the nearby track.  Thankfully, the rest of the race went relatively smoothly but only as I reminded myself often to focus.  Even so, I was too cautious on my first leg into the kanuka forest still running with an emphasis on detail and not on simplification of larger features.  I was running (walking) with Neil Murray, also from NOC, by this point and even with different route choices neither of us could get an advantage over the other.  However, I transitioned well into the last vague block, holding my compass bearing and spotting the vague features I was using as stepping stones to each control. With an injured Neil behind me and only a minute between us, I pushed myself down the hill towards the finish and wrestled 20 seconds back off him. Unfortunately, my afternoon run didn’t go so well and Neil beat me well and good over the two races.  Over the rest of the weekend, I mostly struggled with the transitioning between vegetation types and on entering the interesting pockets of distinct contour types. 

And from Max Griffiths - proudly still a NWOC member, despite living in Christchurch.

For the 2^nd time in only 4 years, NW hosted QB’day carnival in Woodhill forest. This time taking advantage of 2 of the maps gained after WMOC/Oceania last year. The first day featured a NWOC special, the chasing start middle distance. This time with nearly 500 people starting in under an hour. This required a mammoth effort with great planning beforehand to make sure it all ran smoothly, but it most definitely paid off, with many compliments from competitors after this first day. This trend continued throughout the weekend with  the reward of such a successful and smoothly ran carnival after many hours put into planning, course setting, coordination and setup on the day by a huge team of NW members. 

The early starts and late finishes by the setup and packdown crews are worthwhile once the event centre is setup and people start pouring into the arena, with commentary and music playing to keep the vibe. Many people have made comments with how well NW is able to provide the ‘X-factor’ in our arenas, with a great atmosphere, despite the looming rain throughout the weekend. Days 2 and 3 had one of the best event arenas I have seen, with a natural amphitheatre facing a wrap-around finish chute and a mammoth 250m spectator run-through along  one edge of arena utilised on day 3. 

While days 2 and 3 were on a map used only a few months ago at NZ champs, the courses set on both days were of exceptional quality, constantly requiring focus. On Day 2, the course was roughly split into three sections, requiring different focus and speed in each. The full course can be found here http://www.numberoneaucklanddoma.com/maps/show_map.php?user=Max&map=1674 . The first third was set through steeper, open white forest before heading straight into flatter, but more technical lower visibility green forest. Leg 14 was one in this section that required constant focus to execute well, while still maintaining enough speed to make up for the option of taking the track around.

For those that haven’t heard of the concept before, traffic lighting is identifying the speed at which it is safe to run on various parts of the leg based on the risk involved in executing your plan. Identifying this was key on this leg, as the first part of the leg, to the road and picking up the first part of the track could be done at full speed with minimal map contact (Green light). From here it was a case of being strict on following my compass, and the side of the spur, through the low vis, not allowing myself to be pushed around by the vegetation. While usually a leg through this kind of area I would regard as high risk (Red light), I still was able to attack this leg with a lot of pace due to the easy to follow stepping stones into the control, a rather distinct hill for the control feature, and a very safe and obvious catching feature behind the control. This allowed me to win this leg by nearly 30sec (roughly 20% of this leg time), enough to overall take second place by only 2sec back to third.

NW never fails to deliver amazing events and this year’s 3-day JAFA weekend was no exception, constantly building on the success from the last. When the final tent came down, and the final control accounted for at the end of day 3, all those around felt that the work that goes into these carnivals is worth it, and that this carnival lived up to the expectation of all those that travelled to Auckland for it.

Pack down crew celebrating the end of a great three days!

Welcome to New Members:

Todd Kuzmich and Sophie Collins
Cassie, Phoebe and Thomas Wood
Taiga Kato

And welcome back to Helayna Ogden

NWOC Coaching Corner – Prime Preparation

By Matt Ogden

Orienteering is, in part, a sport of preparation. Failing to prepare, is preparing to fail. 

Developing as an orienteer, I was very fortunate to have a number of great mentors (including Thierry Gueorgiou) who instilled in me the importance of preparation. This, I believe, has been critical to putting together some of my best performances and so I thought I would share some of my thoughts on how one prepares for an orienteering race/competition. This is also particularly timely given that a number of our juniors and seniors are heading to Europe (or have already left) to compete at various international competitions. But also, now in the winter, where it’s nicer to be in doors we can reflect on the most recent races, Nationals and Jafa, and how we should prepare for the next. 

Preparing for the next race by finding all the old and relevant maps.

The saying goes (or some variant of) – There are 6 P’s to success: perfect preparation prevents piss poor performance. As I have alluded to in past coaching corners, orienteers are particularly good at identifying the mistakes in our races and not highlighting the parts or legs that we do well. In fact, we could define an orienteering performance first by understanding the time we would take for an impossible “perfect performance” and then all actions taken to deviate from this unicorn time. How to reduce the magnitude of this deviation? I believe is achieved by being well prepared. 

I encourage you to think how you currently prepare for a race, then try take in some of the point’s I will raise below. Preparing doesn’t mean taking a race super seriously or is restricted to the elite runners; instead it is a small set of physical, technical, and mental primers to help you get into the mood for race day. Remember, it is always more fun having a good race, not one riddled with mistakes, therefore I think we can all gain from a little preparation. 

Physical Primers

Of course, nothing beats a race in which we are well-trained and fit. But if you prefer just to orienteer casually or haven’t had the time for much training prior to your race, there is nothing worse than turning up to the start line cold. A light jog the day before or a good warm-up before your race can do wonders for priming your body for the physical demands of orienteering. You need as much as oxygen as possible going to the brain when orienteering, so just being a little more ready physically can do wonders for your technical performance. 

Technical Primers

Geoff Mead highlighted some training that we can do on the couch if we are surrounded by inclement weather or injured. These tips are equally valid before a race to get us into the right headspace for orienteering.

Additionally we can:

• • Develop a picture of the map and terrain in our heads so that before we pick up the map and head to the start triangle we have a fair idea of what to expect. This is relatively easy in Woodhill, where we have run so many times before and know what to expect, but can be more challenging in unfamiliar terrain. 
• • Know where the event centre is and any particular event-specific information. This is easy if there is a beautiful bulletin, such as for Jafa, otherwise the event usually has some details which you can use to figure out where the event centre is. 
• • Have a go at estimating the course, and therefore what kind and when you should expect different types of terrain etc. 

Using the Bulletin information provided by the event organisers can help you to build a picture in your head of how the event centre, terrain, and course will play out. 

Mental Primers

This is very individual and probably the most difficult thing to nut out. Some people learn quickly what to do to get the most out of their mind and body whereas others need to invest more effort. For me, after much iteration, many years getting super nervous as a junior, I realised that the most important thing for me before a race is energy. If I go into a race with good energy levels, excited to race and wanting to race, then this generally coincides with a better performance. I invest so much on the technical side of the sport, so that when I hit that start line, as long as I am motivated and wanting to be there, then I will focus on the necessary tasks. 

A little pre-race caffeine always gets me in the mood, or watching some sick orienteering.

So with that, I leave you with some ideas to think about for how to prepare for your next orienteering race. As with so many things that we do, everyone has their own way and own style. So I encourage you to ask some of the more experienced orienteers in the club how they prepare for their races and then develop your own style that works best for you! 

NISS Results

Congratulations to the following NWOC juniors who made podium at this event in April in Wellington.

Senior Boys
Sprint 1st Alex de Beer
Long 2nd Alex de Beer

Senior Girls
Sprint 2nd Jessica Sewell
Long 2nd Jessica Sewell

Junior Girls
Sprint 3rd Sophie Ryan

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

AKSS Results

And another set of great results from some of our NWOC juniors

Senior Boys Championship
1st Alex de Beer
3rd Alex Monckton

Senior Girls Championship
1st Jessica Sewell

Intermediate Boys Championship
2nd Cameron Bonar

Y7/8 Boys Championship
1st Taiga Kato

And in the Standard Grades:

Senior Boys Standard
3rd Paddy Fookes

Senior Girls Standard
1st Caitlin Bailey
2nd Holly Ma

Intermediate Girls Standard
3rd Chelsea Sampson

JAFA (Auckland Champs) Results

Congratulations to the following NW members.

Day 1 Double Middle (Auckland Champs)

W12A 2nd Cassie Wood

Senior Girls A 2nd Jessica Sewell

Senior Girls B 3rd Chelsea Sampson

M21E 1st Matt Ogden, 2nd Gene Beveridge

W21A 1st Kate Salmon

W21AS 2nd Charlotte De L’Isle

M40A 3rd Nick Harris

W40AS 1st Alison Carswell, 2nd Nicki Collins

M40AS 2nd Tim Longson

M50A 1st Mark Lawson

W60A 3rd Phillippa Poole

M60A 1st Geoff Mead

W70A 3rd Lorri O’Brien

M12B 1st Remy Symington

M21B 2nd Jason Sampson

W21C 2nd Geraldine Smith

W40B 2nd Fiona De L’Isle

M40B 2nd Alister Ryan

Day 2&3 Combined (Auckland Champs)

M12B 1st Remy Symington

Senior Girls A 2nd Jessica Sewell

Senior Girls B 1st Caitlin Bailey, 2nd Holly Ma

M20A 2nd Max Griffiths, 3rd Daniel Monckton

M21E 1st Gene Beveridge

W21A 1st Lise Turner, 2nd Kate Salmon

W21AS 2nd Maddie Longson, 3rd Charlotte De L’Isle

M21B 1st Jason Sampson

M40A 2nd Rob Murphy

W40AS 1st Alison Carswell

M40AS 2nd Adrian Griffiths, 3rd Tim Longson

W40B 1st Alister Ryan, 2nd Jan Jager, 3rd Wally Sampson

W50A 1st Marquita Gelderman

W60A 3rd Lisa Mead

W70A 3rd Mary Moen