Queens Birthday Weekend, Kate's View...

Superseries placegetters

The weekend was a good set of races for our preperation towards JWOC.
My car load arrived a bit late to the first day, so i had to literally jump out and race to the start. When I got there, they were calling me, and i had 20 seconds till I started! When I started, my mind was obviously not in a clear, focussing state, as i did many mistakes on the first 7 or so controls. After that, the rhythm started kicking, although it still was not perfect. I was not disappointed with my first race, but was not happy with it either.
We had a bit of a wait before the night race, so we went along to Brent Edwards Adventure race talk. It was so interesting to see how he competes and what motivates him to do such an extreme sport! I would love to do adventure racing, but i think I will stick with Orienteering for the moment as it seems a lot more tame. I would like to thank Brent for the really inspirational talk, im sure it helped to motivate many of the juniors, and seniors to keep on going and pushing through those difficult times in a race.
The night event was very different. We had a mass start for the women, it started off pretty well. Most of us were together for the first part of the course. People were sinking in mud, getting caught in blackberry and falling in streams. It was raining as well, making it a lot harder to concentrate on the orienteering. At number four, i was in the lead as i had a feeling we were too low, so i started running up the rocky hillside a bit more to get a better view, but i could not really see a thing...not until one of the others shined their torch in my direction, and then i could see the control! After this control, I think i was trying to run too fast, and trying to keep in front of the large torches so i could see better, but i over shot a control, and had to run back. By this time, I had lost the main front pack which had all the powerful lights. Amber and I were left working together as we both and very dull head lights and mine was not staying on my head anyway. Oh the joys of night orienteering. We kept on going, not making too many mistakes, just had a bit of trouble when we got closer to the control circle as we could not see very far. In the end, we got beaten by about 10min by the front 3 that had awesome head torches. It just goes to show how much of an advantage those headlamps are! If I had the money I would invest in one, but i dont really see the point, when we only do one or two night races a year. Overall a very fun and challenging race! Really helpful for concentration on orienteering techniques.

Day 2, C.D champs. I was originally supposed to start at 11.16am, but the W20 grade had to be moved to 2 hours later as there was a clash in start times. This was a bit disapointing as we did not get to run in the sun, and instead got the cold overcast weather conditions. Overall it does not make too much of a difference as we are all in the same situation. This race was ok for me. I made quite a few costly errors on the first part of the course, which left me in a postion to work hard. I got caught up by Georgia, as she started 2min behind me. I found it hard to get away, and stay ahead. I made a small error when I was with Georgia, I was looking to early, which left me to fall behind her and Angela, who had just caught us both up. I found it hard to keep up with these two once they were that bit ahead of me, so i tried hard to not lose too much time on them. I could see them alot on the long legs, which was challenging to try to catch them up. In the end, the course was great, but my result and orienteering was not as good as i would have like to have done.
My loop for Arimrio mass start

Mass start at Arimiro. This was another very interesting race. I became submerged in mud at least 6 times! It was such an experience for me, and my upper body which was trying to support my weight in order to get out of the deep stream sides. I was on loop b, which was not as competitive to the other loop group. It was Amber, Rita and me that were battling it off for the first part of the course. Then at the last pivot when the loops met up again, I managed to get stuck in mud quite deep again, and just found it hard to keep up with Amber along the track. This leg was quite a route choice leg, and I was really hesitant in which way to go...track (hill) or marsh (flat)...in the end i chose the flat option. Whilst running around the flat to the control, I got stuck in a jungle like terrain and really marshy undergrowth. I thought to myself, "what are you doing? no one would have gone this way!"-then happened to find out at the end that a lot of people went that way. After this control, I didnt end up making too many mistakes, just pure strength when wading through the mud and streams was the hardest part. Angela caught me up at number 14. I was very suprised to see her, as i thought I had lost a lot of time at number 12. Me and Angela both went down an extremely muddy track to number 17, which was possibly a bad route choice as we were sliding around everywhere!! From then on, it was ok, and Rita caught me back up somehow, which I was suprised about again.
Great weekend of racing, although I was not entirely happy with my racing. I hope it will become a lot more smoother as JWOC creeps up on us.
Overall in the Superseries events I came 3rd in junior women. I did not know this could possibly work, as I had missed Waitangi weekend because of my injury, so it was quite cool to have this end result, and it also meant I won a head lamp(could have been useful for the night before :P)
Thanks to everyone that organised the weekend. Definitely worth the break from study! Also found out and experienced this weekend that winter is definitely here this year :S