Hi all Attached find a Victorian map, Brandy Hot, near daylesford. I’ve just managed to get OCAD working on my computer. I have literally ‘thrown’ a few legs on this map for you to peruse. Quite a big JPG file.
MARCH 8 & 9 (NEXT WEEKEND!) – VICTORIAN TRAINING Training will be at the following locations: Sat – am. Meet at 10am at St Georges Lake, Creswick, near the toilet block ready to ride. Short course planned initially on St Georges. Afternoon on Creswick. Sun – am Daylesford (Rodoni) in morning meeting at supermarket carpark in daylesford at 9.30, and then we will travel about 6kms to the area. pm Castlemaine, meeting at high school approx 2pm Mon – Maryborough for both sessions finishing early afternoon, with 3pm being the latest. Meet at the indoor pool and sports centre at 9.30am adjacent to Gillies St. From centre of town (high St) go South on Inkerman st, which later becomes the Maryborough Majorca rd. Just over the train line look for car park on your left. ACCOMODATION: Castlemaine Central Cabin & Van Pk 150 metres south of traffic lights. We will meet there after training. Bring sl bags and pillows, as Im not sure what is supplied. I’m a coach not a cook, so you need to be self sufficient with food. Bring breakfast food, fruit etc. For tea it would be good to eat out at least one night, but there is the option to cook in the cabins too. There is a supermarket, vegie shop and bakery within walking distance.
Trials entries Congrats to our intrepid Qldlander Thorlene for being first in with her trials entry. Now how about you all following suit and making the organisers happy (and under less pressure) by getting your entries in ASAP. See AO website for details. Encourage other mt bikers to come too, as it is a National League event, and normal mtbo event open to all.
Its a busy time of year, with everyone making the most of the sunshine and late evenings to train in daylight and take in the myriad of big events on offer.
Adrian Jackson (AJ) did us all proud in the Otway, jousting with all the xc and enduro big guns and placing a close 5th (1 min behind 3rd in 5hr.30 mins of racing) in the rugged and wet conditions. Paul Darvodelsky again showed the benefits of his dedicated training by coming 3rd in the equally competitive masters class. Alex Randall came back from a minor injury to win the You Yangs mtbo event, just ousting out AJ. Braemar college’s Peter Markworth has recovered from a pretty horrific accident on Mt macedon, and 30 stitches later, is back on his bike – well done. David Simpfendorfer took out the Belanglo event. He then had a rare venture into the adv racing game in AROC’s recent Canberra event, but tho he led his all male team first past the post, they got docked 10 mins (back to 3rd) for not reading the instructions properly and failing to follow a marked route on the ride! That’s the organisers version anyway!
Over in the west Jenn, Cath and Sarah are all training hard, with forays into foot o and triathlons, and had the 120 km Great Karri xc race on the agenda this weekend. Can you guess which one has regular ‘pram running’ on her attack point log and describes a recent run as a bit rough as ‘baby X’ had a good spew afterwards? Always good to have variety in training eh!
Over in SA I set a mostly street course around the coastal town of Goolwa last weekend. This involved riders going thru a little native bush area signposted ‘beware many venounmous snakes in this area.’ They also had a control in the bmx area, where i got them to do 3 laps of the course before heading to the next control. This weekend they are using a 1: 25,000 suburban 4 hour rogaine (foot O) map for training. ‘Necessity is the mother of invention,’ is an apt saying. Perhaps we can have a competition for the most inventive ways of mtbo training! Get those entries flooding in.
I’ve been off the bike for 5 months now due to recurrent blood clots and a serious knee injury that keeps swelling with any activity, even swimming, so I’ve stacked on the weight unfortunately. On the up side at least ive got time to organise mtbo stuff.
Quite a number of you are coming to the pre-trials training days in April which is fantastic. Should be of great benefit technically and enable the non Victorians to get your brain and eyes used to the Vic terrain. We have a couple of junior Tassie boys making the trip over, so this should worry the ‘senior citizens’ of the squad in the sprint, where the courses will be the same. Been a bit of interest about our trials from over in NZ and I know that at least Maquita Gelderman and Rob Garden are coming, and they too have requested a cabin at ‘Bike Central’ (Welcome Stranger Holiday Park). Thor Egerton and Kath Copland and Jenn- and John Toomey are in seperate teams ‘warming up’ for the trials with the multi-day Keen adventure race.
Training tips
1) There will be SI punching in use at the trials so do practice with it beforehand. The electronic SI ‘stick’ needs to be attached to your bike in a position that is easy for you to get at and use on both sides. Not hidden too far under the mapboard. Attachment is usually via a ‘zinger’ (retractable cord thing often used by nurses etc and available at ‘office works’ or other big stationery shops). You then need to tie the SI stick and Zinger securely on to the bike. SI sticks will be available for hire at the trials. But do get a ‘zinger’ and work out the best position to tie it, and get used to grabbing it as you ride along, so you have it ready to push into the SI timing unit on top of the control stand. You should do simulated practice of coming into a control and trying to ‘punch’ without coming to a complete stop.
2) Focusing your eye on the map. What do you use to make sure that you find where you are at a quick glance on the map? Some use blu tac, others electrical / stationery tape, others even ankle tape. Try putting 3 or 4 ‘tags’ on your mapboard and moving them around every 2nd or 3rd leg. Make sure your ‘tag’ type works in the rain. For South Aussies this means taking the mapboard into the shower, as i cant remember when it last rained here. Altenatively do the NZ method of tin under your map and some very strong magnets.
3) Route Choice Set yourself some challenging route choice decisions on a map and then go and ride the options. Especially in regard to how wide you can go on a good surface and flattish terrain, rather than on a hilly route / a route that utilises dodgy slow tracks. This can take the form of an interval session – race route A hard, then return slowly, then race route B hard, then recover moving on to another leg and 2 route choice options. Alternatively, if you had an interesting route choice in a race then go back to the area and try route choice 2, but make sure that you had ridden hard for an equal amount of time before the leg came up in the particular race. If you have a friend who is the same riding speed you could do different legs and wait at each control to compare times and degree of difficulty. BIG 3 things to consider are: a) climb b) rideability of tracks c) ease of navigation (more turns and junctions make it complex and slower)
4) Hill rideability. Take a map and do some time trials up different hills and steepnesses, even ones you are forced to walk. Also time how long it takes you to do 500m, 1 km and 4km on fairly flat tracks at normal race pace (not a sprint). At the very least this will give you an idea of how close the contours have to be to a) make you struggle or b) even walk, and give you a ‘feel’ the time v terrain equation one constantly has to make. There’s no straight forward answer, but looking specifically at the options in training will give you valuable experience.
The selection procedures for the 2008 World Orienteering Championships have been confirmed. The document regarding these procedures was first published in January, and can be found here:
The Canberra Cockatoos indicated that they intend to make amends for a disappointing 2007 by having the best of the opening weekend in the 2008 SILVA National Orienteering League. In Sunday’s long-distance race at Mount Beckworth, their senior men’s and women’s teams both won, extending their men’s lead and drawing them level with the Victorian Nuggets in the women’s.
The Canberra Cockatoos recorded a come-from-behind victory in the men’s elite relay at Spring Gully. Southern Arrows Kerrin Rattray led from Troy de Haas and Christopher Naunton on the first leg, but Andy Hogg kept the Cockatoos in the hunt. The field bunched up on the second leg, with hot conditions taking their toll. Rob Preston, Rob Walter and Blair Trewin all made ground on the second leg, and there was only a couple of minutes between the top five. On the last leg, Dave Shepherd ran away from Simon Uppill to give ACT the win, with Warren Key’s Victoria taking third, courtesy of a mispunch by Evan Barr.