News
May 2019 News
Published Fri 03 May 2019
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Hello Members Well done to all those who were involved with the AOS event held on 31 March that also doubled as a trial for the 2019 JWOC team. The event attracted a large number of participants and thanks to the superb planning skills of Matt Ogden and Devon Beckman, there was a real buzz in the forest that day. Exciting, challenging courses with an x factor! Next up for North West is the Rogaine Series with this Sunday 5 May - on a brand new map! New maps don't just happen - two of our Club Members, Paul Ireland and Cameron de L'Isle spent hours over summer mapping the farm and bush and we are very grateful for their time and dedication working on this project. And thanks too to the landowners, Felicity and Dave Morgan for allowing us to use their farm. Looking ahead, two more rogaines will follow on Sundays 19 May and 9 June. In between, AOS 1, which had to be postponed because of a fire risk in February, is now on Sunday 12 June. This event, hosted by Auckland Club, will be held on a map that hasn't been used for several years and has recently been updated. Again two North West Club members, Mike Beveridge and Daniel Monckton spent hours completing this update and have virtually remapped the area. Thanks to Mike and Daniel. It will be great to be back on this map which has previously been much enjoyed by orienteers. As you will read in the newsletter, many of our Members had success at the recent National Champs held in Oamaru over Easter. And there was also success 'off-the-map' with Rob Garden being made a Life Member of ONZ. Rob has been involved with our sport for many years - as a national coach and team manager. He has led development trips to overseas events for both foot and mountain bike orienteering. And as we know him as Club Captain of NWOC he plays a key role in scoping new terrain for events, organising events, he is a keen competitor and his general enthusiasm for all things orienteering is unmatched. This is a well deserved honour and we will find a time to acknowledge Rob's award. Marquita Gelderman was also elected to ONZ Council. As someone with enormous knowledge of the technical aspects of orienteering as well as her vast experience 'on-the-map' I know the orienteering community will be well served by Marquita. I was the recipient of the Administrator of the Year and Presidents Awards. I am humbled to have been recognised and know that these awards are due to the wonderful team who support me that is our Club, North West. Thank you to you all. Jenny Cade In this issue
1. Upcoming Events5 May (THIS SUNDAY) Rogaine 1 - Hidden Valley, Kaukapakapa 12 May AOS 1 (rescheduled) - Turkey Ridge, Woodhill Forest 19 May Rogaine 2 - Lake Kereta 26 May Rogaine organised by Whangarei Orienteering Club - Huanui map https://www.sporty.co.nz/whorienteering/Home 9 June Rogaine 3 - Hedley Dunes 15 June SI Timing Training (details below) 30 June AOS 5 - Temu Road, Woodhill Forest
2. NZ Orienteering ChampionshipsNZOC2019 was hosted by PAPO and located in and around Oamaru - an area between PAPO and Dunedin OC which hadn't previously been used for orienteering. The terrain was excellent and for me this was an interesting aspect of the event - it made me wonder what other great terrain might be lying undiscovered in the gaps between clubs? Thinking about the Auckland region, North West and CMOC might consider exploring a little further afield than normal to see what treasures we might find. The terrains discovered for NZOC2019 were gems. Each day offered distinctly different terrain characteristics ideally suited to the disciplines of Sprint, Long, Middle and Relay. Oamaru as a Sprint venue was memorably scenic. The old stone buildings lent the race an air of a European town, and the seaside event centre was refreshing, just a bit chilly for swimming. At least, too chilly for this coddled North Islander. The first half of the course was in lovely park environs, the second half through buildings finishing around rather than through the ‘old town’ area. The park and old buildings had plenty of potential which perhaps was not fully exploited by the courses. My course was fast but not particularly technical - running speed and confident execution were key over route choice and detailed navigation. Kuriheka was tough Long Distance terrain. Steep gully/spur terrain punctuated with rock detail (including one particularly memorable control inside a boulder cluster the size of a house) with forest cover of pine and manuka. Courses were big on route choice and physical endurance. My lack of fitness was exposed and I made numerous silly mistakes which were particularly costly because of the additional climb. A mistake in flat terrain like Woodhill (2.5m contours) can be quickly remedied, but in steep terrain like Kuriheka (5m contours and lots of them!) it just takes longer to correct mistakes. And, it costs more energy which makes one more susceptible to errors - I was so cooked at the end that I mistook the last control for the finish control. I’ve been orienteering for 17 years and still I spent 20 seconds hunched over at the mouth of the finish chute before I realised why everyone was running past me! This sport continually humbles me, and dangles redemption at m y finger-tips in the next race. The Middle Distance was run on a map called Maerewhenua, a neat little forested area of former gold sluicing, much like the fabled Naseby maps. Lots of cliff faces and erosion features left by gold miners, now with a beautiful runnable forest cover. It was super technical and I knew from my first look at the map that it would be very easy to lose contact amidst all the detail. My strategy was to treat it as an exercise in damage control, so I approached the course pretty slowly and with caution. As a consequence I avoided any major errors, but I wasn't fast enough to win. Each orienteering course you attempt asks you to strike a balance between accuracy and aggression; each terrain and course, indeed each leg, demands its own solution. Relays were held on Humpy Bumpy - a farm map with numerous areas of complex rock detail. Great relay terrain - super fast but plenty of options for gaffling and plenty of traps for the unwary. I was running in the Masters grade with Pip Poole and Mark Lawson. I appreciated the mass start with my own age grade - it made the competitive element seen more real when not racing against Juniors and Elites. I started well holding in the top three through the early forkings but with a couple of long forks and an exit error I dropped back to seventh and for the rest of the course I battled unsuccessfully with Simon Rouse (AOC) for sixth. I was navigating at the limit of my fitness and it was nowhere near enough to be competitive. Nothing quite matches the frantic intensity of a mass start relay - it’s a great experience and I think we could do more of it in Auckland. NW teams didn't fare so well this year. Admittedly we were depleted with a number of key juniors heading t o World Schools and taking Gene Beveridge with them as coach. And of course, Matt Odgen's defection to Nelson OC meant he was anchoring their first team instead of ours. True to form, Matt ran a storming final leg to take first place - a feat we all took some pride in because regardless of what shirt he wears, Matt will always be one of ours (no really, he’s a Life Member of NW so I mean that both affectionately and literally!). Actually, it was cool to see Nelson take the title - its a good sign for the sport and really freshens up the club competition to have a new contender in the field. After a night in Moeraki to visit the boulders, we headed up to Naseby for the Dunedin OC follow-up event. I loved watching my boys, Tahi & Quinn, attempt courses there. Tahi felt confident to do the whole white course at full speed and surprised himself with a great time 12 minutes and change. I think now he realises what he can do. I shadowed Quinn around the white course and was stoked to observe some good habits already forming - folding the map, standing behind the pink line, orientating the map, identifying the control and the linear feature to follow… I think if he is interested to do so he’ll be able to run on his own soon. This was icing on the cake for me - my sons having awesome orienteering experiences at Naseby - a wonderful way to wrap up a truly memorable orienteering holiday. We wound our back to Christchurch through Cromwell, the Lindis Pass and Tekapo, with the South Island draped in its autumn finery. Yellows, oranges and reds highlighting the golden tussock hills, strings of mountain ranges piercing the bright cold skies… OK granted, after spending a week in the campervan with three kids it was a relief to drop the bloody thing off, but NZOC2019 and the South Island gave us some wonderful family memories. - Nick Harris Congratulations to the following NW members who made the podium at Nationals: M21E M10 M18A M20A M21A M40AS M45A M50A M70A W21E W21A W21AS W40B W50A W60A
3. Congratulations on National Awards/PositionsAt the Prizegiving the following were announced - we are all very proud of these NWOC members and feel their awards are well-deserved! You can watch some of the prizegiving here Marquita Gelderman
Jenny Cade
Rob Garden
Marquita Gelderman
The following are the nominations NWOC put forward for Marquita and Jenny: Marquita Gelderman NWOC would like to nominate Marquita Gelderman for the title of “Mountain Bike Orienteer of the Year” for her four golden medals at the World masters MTBO Championships. At the end of June 2018, the World masters MTBO Championships were held in Hungary. In probably the most impressive series of results ever by a Kiwi, Marquita won gold in every single race in the W50 class – mass start, sprint, middle and long distance!
Jenny Cade NWOC would like to nominate Jenny Cade for the title of “Administrator of the Year”. At the end of 2017, Jenny was asked to take up the massive role of JAFA’18 event director, having done a marvellous job in 2015. Around the same time NWOC president Nick Harris stepped down from his role, and in the absence of any other candidate, Jenny took on the presidency as well. Orienteering-related activities took up an immense part of Jenny’s time in 2018, made even more challenging by starting a new job professionally. JAFA had over 500 entries and was held in very wet weather. There were significant logistic challenges in getting access to this part of Woodhill, including a rahui that was lifted only in week before the event. Yet Jenny kept a calm focus on delivering another special event. Who will forget the large Jaffa for the last control! The club received a lot of positive feedback, typified by the following: “Oh and thanks again for the fantastic events. It was awesome”. “One of our club members said afterwards ‘You’ve got to hand it to them. They sure know how to put on an amazing event.’ “ Jenny’s desire and dedication to push our club to organising events of high standards, her time commitment, her perseverance during difficult times, combined with the very high quality of her own work and a drive to support others to perform to the best of their abilities, makes Jenny in NWOC’s opinion a worthy recipient for ‘Administrator of the Year’.
4. JWOC Teams 2019Congratulations to the following who have been named in the New Zealand team to compete in Denmark at the Junior World Orienteering Championships in July: Daniel Monckton Congratulations also to Tegan Knightbridge who has been named in the New Zealand Mountain Bike Orienteering team to complete at the Junior World MTBO Championships, also in Denmark 28 July to 3 August. 5. Welcome to New NWOC MembersWelcome to new members: Luke Farrand Leo Huang Isaac Schuurman and welcome back to South Island based Kat Reynolds We look forward to getting to know you at events. 6. Club Member Profile - David MelroseDavid Melrose has been a member of NWOC for many years. He was one of a group of orienteers including Ross Brighouse, Kevin Ireland, Rob Garden, Max Kerrison, John Rix and others who dominated the 21 grade in the 80’s. He was also a very fast track / road runner and once made a cameo appearance in the Queen Street Mile race ( then known as the Molenberg Mile) in 1983, racing as Superman - evidence can be seen here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZMQy824gvv0 David is the son of Ralph King who was a huge supporter of orienteering in NZ and of NWOC. Ralph supported a number of young promising athletes and competed in orienteering into his eighties. Ralph was a key player in terms of orienteering getting started in NZ and in making O maps. After Ralph's death, David has generously supported NWOC, in memory of his father, with donations which we use to support travel for junior club members - to JWOC , World Orienteering Champs, Junior Camp or travel to Australia for the NZSS Trans-Tasman Challenges. David is an inventor of bottle design and pasteurization technologies, holds over 450 patents globally and is recognised as an expert in his field. We appreciate him taking some time to answer some questions for this profile: Number of years orienteering? How were you introduced to orienteering? Key orienteering achievements to date? Current orienteering project or goal? Favourite map and why? Map you have yet to experience but aspire to orienteer on? Orienteering hero? Day job? Other interests?
7. Safety in the ForestJust a reminder that we all need to be aware of the following when we are in the forest. Personal Safety Check for Competitors:
8. Coaching Corner - Dealing with nerves and pressure - Renee BeveridgeThis is my first Coaching Corner entry, so I hope I’m doing it right. Like all sports, nerves, pressure, and focus are large factors in our performance. However, I would argue this affects Orienteers more than other sports people. With Orienteering we are trying to control a part of our body that is hard to tame at the best of times; our brain. Training to kick a ball or running lots for a Marathon can be mostly achieved by physical training. As long as you’ve trained enough beforehand on these skills, the key factors affecting your performance are covered. In Orienteering our brain is the only thing allowing us to navigate accurately. When we are nervous, you end up in a state of “brain scramble”. Don’t get me wrong, you feel pressure in all sports. But it’s more crucial in Orienteering. Being fit is only useful in Orienteering if you know where you’re navigating to, and navigating accurately can only be done if you can think clearly. This has been coined previously by Matt Ogden as a triangle; the physical-mental-technical. Suddenly, all the training you’ve put in; the long runs, the horrible intervals, and the numerous times you’ve gone to the forest to practice navigation are meaningless because you‘ve left your brain at the start line and now the map just looks like a mush of colours with no meaning. So how do can we work on this aspect of our Orienteering?
The Use of Relays as a Way of Training Yourself to Manage Race NervesI can say personally that I make more novice mistakes during relays than in individual races. I’ve made my fair share of dumb mistakes in individual races too, but relays make me gawk at my failure the most. Relays are the one race that make you extremely anxious regardless of the level of event. The extra pressure of not wanting to let your team down and running in close proximity to your competitors (especially if you’re 1st leg) places you into a world of pressure not experienced in many individual races. This got me thinking. How can we use relays during trainings to simulate the high pressure situations we experience in individual events like Nationals or JWOC? A couple of years ago I helped coach at a High Performance training camp in Auckland. I had a number of trainings to set and wanted to make sure each training was uniquely challenging. After reflecting on the mistakes I have made in the past, I believe that a large part of Kiwi Orienteers' training is missing; dealing with high pressure situations. We simply do not have enough big competitions every year like the Europeans do where we come face to face with our nerves on a regular basis. Think about how the majority of our club events are used by many as trainings or social events, rather than serious competitions? Compare that to O-ringen, Tio-mila, Jukola, O-France, Swiss-O week, Croatian O-week, Scottish 6-days the list goes on. So…I incorporated a normal relay (3 per team) into the training camp. This of course would help with relay races as well, but was ultimately aimed at simulating high pressure situations in general. Immediately I saw a difference in how people approached the training; they were more aggressive and there was a sense of urgency. I clearly remember Max Griffiths having a battle with Tane Cambridge. Neither runner would’ve been running that fast and looking that crazed as they sprinted each other off to the finish if it had just been a normal individual exercise. Suddenly the element of pressure was introduced and there was no time for jogging around and being sloppy. I believe strongly that a key to helping non-European based Orienteers improve their mental focus, is to introduce mentally stressful trainings and events. Most individual trainings and events just don’t make people feel any mental pressure. Even though we know that we are training for big future events, we often blob around and feel no real desire to run our butts off and be super focused. It’s hard to make yourself feel pressure when you know it’s just a training or another AOS and no one is depending on you like in a relay situation, and that’s what we need to change.
FOCUS FOCUS FOCUSNot focusing can be a product of nerves but also a product of complacency. I would say it’s easier to be unfocused during trainings and AOS events, but sadly I find my mind wandering even in big competitions with much bigger consequences. There are a number of ways Orienteers can explain their mistakes; some are also more preventable than others. Whether it’s an inability to understand the map, complacency, or cockiness, they all end rather badly. Reflections on focus issues during Nationals Long: My long distance was going ok. I finished 3rd and even if I hadn’t made my mistakes I definitely wouldn’t have won. I had made a small mistake to number 7 and was a little annoyed. Nevertheless, I began my execution of 7-8. My route was simple, and I think most competitors took it. I was to go fairly straight (blue line).
But alas…I completely lost concentration. Assuming I was still on the blue line, I started to descend on the wrong angle and crossed another river (ignoring the fact I didn’t cross any fence) and thought I was crawling up the hill toward the open land. After I climbed the hill I began to get worried as there was no open land appearing on the horizon. Standing and staring at my map like a goon I did a bearing, and knew that I would eventually hit open land at some point and this would make it easier to relocate. This was of course a navigational error; but there’s a difference between making an error because you simply don’t understand the map, and making an error because you’re not even reading the map. This was a totally preventable mistake and wasn’t really a super challenging leg, but a small loss in concentration and I was running down the hill on the wrong angle, which made me drift off. So simply but so costly. In total I lost around 5 minutes on this one leg. Snapping Under Relay Pressure at NZ RelaysObviously using relays as trainings is going to help with actual relay competitions as well..duah. Which is why NZ should probably have more relay competitions too. Two of my mistakes during the NZ relay cost me important time. I was running around with Briana Steven, Marisol Hunter, as well as being slowly caught by Georgia Whitla and Lara Molloy. Immediately the pressure was on. Briana started in front of me so I was keen to keep her in my sights. I wasn’t sure when Marisol started, but she appeared out of nowhere and went to a few of my controls early on. I was rather physically pooped but was still running hard and we were all going around the same speed. Georgia caught me at control 6, and immediately I decided that it would be a great idea to increase my speed, even though I knew I wouldn’t be able to keep up with her. This of course meant I was no longer focusing on my own course, and just chasing Georgia. Even though I knew that it was a RELAY and therefore we probably had different controls. Which we did...
Immediately I knew something was wrong, and had to stop and quickly relocate. Looking at it now, 6-7 is not a hard leg, but it felt so hard at the time because I was no longer focusing and taking the time to visualise the terrain in front of me. The same happened on 12. I was still just behind Briana and knew that even if I stayed this distance behind her, I would have caught up time. But again, my focus on her reduced my contact with the map. As a result I became confused halfway through the leg, and was struggling to know what was up or down. This was immediately followed by the thought of “Oh no, Briana’s getting away!” instead of “Ok stop and think. Focusing on Briana doesn’t magically make the control appear in front of you. Just read the map”. This concentration issue seems to be the same one that affects me every time, but at the time, I can’t seem to shut it out and say to myself “this is what always happens, and you know it doesn’t help…so stop it”. Unfortunately, it seems like our desire to catch our competitors is often followed with poor plans and total brain scramble. We feel pressure because we want to do well and beat other people. Cruelly and ironically though, the one physiological reaction of wanting to do well is to have a brain explosion which always makes us do badly. So how do we use pressure to make ourselves more determined to focus, rather than making us more determined to run faster and then make soul destroying mistakes? Or perhaps, how do we prevent ourselves from feeling pressure at all? We know that in Orienteering our competitors have no direct influence on our own performance…it’s all about our own fitness and map reading. Yet in pressure situations we focus more on our competitors than on ourselves. I don’t have the best answer. Some races you just feel super involved with. You’re staring at the map like it’s the love of your life. But when your mind starts to wonder, how do you catch yourself? As Kay Knightbridge, W50A Middle Distance bronze medalist quickly informed me after I explained my mistake to her, “You just do it”. But how…. For one thing, including more relay type trainings is a start. Perhaps also chasing start trainings. Anything that makes you feel under pressure. - Renee 9. Sport Ident/Timing Training - seeking to train more membersGone are the days where you'd clip every control on your map during an orienteering event, taking days for a group of volunteers to work out who was the fastest on the course. A lot of this work is currently done electronically, using SportIdent cards and boxes, with individual results available directly after downloading, and overall results following within a short period of time. NWOC is lucky to have a few people with these skills, but we'd like to grow this pool of knowledge, so timing is not always done by the same small group of volunteers. In addition, NWOC regularly gets commercial requests to provide timing for other sports, so you could even earn some pocket money with your new timing skills. Are you interested in learning what makes your SportIdent go beep? How to add excitement to an event by having radio controls? North West is running two different timing workshops, organised by Jan Jager and Annemarie Hogenbirk. The morning workshop is intended for NWOC members who would like to understand how the system works in general, and who are willing to help out during an event, help solve common problems and assist with the online registration during the day. No IT knowledge or experience required, just the ability to read a screen, click a button, or replace paper in the printer. The workshop will be very much hands-on, to give you a good, practical understanding of the systems NWOC currently uses. The afternoon workshop is intended for NWOC members who enjoy a technical challenge, and are prepared to learn how to confidently set up the IT side of an orienteering event, and solve the more complicated problems during an event. Although having an IT background is handy, it is definitely not a requirement. This workshop will be slightly more abstract in content. Both workshops are planned for Saturday, 15 June at the Harbour Sport Building's board room, at QBE stadium in Albany. Each workshop will appropriately last two hours, starting at 9.30am and 1.30pm respectively. Email northwestorieteering@gmail.com to register your interest, ideally before 8 June.
10. Rogaine SeriesA reminder that the Rogaine Series kicks off this weekend - details on http://www.rogaineseries.co.nz
11. NZ Secondary Schools Championships 23-25 AugustNWOC and AOC are hosting the New Zealand Secondary School Orienteering Championships this year, from Friday 23rd until Sunday 25th of August. Note that this is a different date to previous years. See |
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