sandrazürcher

Another WOC qualification race today. I had a good run; technically it was certainly good, but maybe I wasn't moving fast enough physically. I ran my race in a time of 61 minutes and felt good about my percent behind the leader, but it looks like everyone was able to run better today and I ended up in the 20th position. This is disappointing, but it's not all bad, I can certainly take the feeling of satisfaction I had in the finish line in both my races, yesterday and today, regardless of the result, with me.

Results are here: http://live.woc2009.hu/?p=long
My map is here: http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_93aH6irRG74/SomCr5A4zuI/AAAAAAAAAGs/IYPndF-H9Fo/s1600-h/IMG_3344.JPG

The US Team however, had a successful day anyway. Samantha Saeger ran a fast and strong race and qualified for the Long final in 14th place. Here's Sam running up the finish shoot.

SOW 2009 took place in the Muotatal this year, a beautiful valley above the town of Schwyz. I decided to take part in the first 3 events, in order to get some good racing in before WOC. Too bad that didn't work out as well as planned.

These 3 days did not go the way I expected them. The weather took a turn for the worse after several weeks of beautiful, sunny, dry days in Switzerland. The rain started on Sunday morning didn't let up for 48 hours. This didn't really cause problems for the Sprint in Schwyz on Sunday, but it made for some problems for the race up at 1800 meters on Monday. Mostly because the courses were very muddy and it was hard to run at all on the steep slippery slopes. Certain categories on Day 3 even got cancelled because of flooding, they were using a different map and it seems that several streams were too high to be crossed safely. Really too bad for them.

My races didn't go well for me and I felt frustrated after both bad results. I just keep making mistakes that I really don't need to be making and recovering from them badly as well. I hope that I can learn something from these races and perform better at WOC. It can only getting better from here:-)

Unfortunately, I did not run the 3rd day. You see on the 2nd Day I had a late start time and trying to get home on the military buses proved to be difficult. Some sort of misunderstanding occurred and my brother and I ended up waiting with about 200 other runners for 2 hours for transport home. It seems most of the buses went home and there was only 1 caravan left to transport us off the mountain. It was raining cats and dogs and very cold, so I froze my butt off. Since I have problems with my sinuses, I knew that these two hours would cause some inflammation. I was right and woke up on Tuesday with a sinus headache and a sore throat. I decided to skip the race, especially since there was an 2 hour hike to the start (5km and 700 meters of climb) and I knew with a little rest I wouldn't get sick. Two weeks before WOC is no time to take risks. Too bad though, the terrain looked awesome. Would have been fun.

Here are the maps:
Day 1: http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_93aH6irRG74/SnmX_N3JxCI/AAAAAAAAAGM/5qir5Yo0s9k/s1600-h/Sprint_Schwyz_SOW1.jpg
Day 2: http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_93aH6irRG74/SnmZVhIS1xI/AAAAAAAAAGU/JiFA8DLC3oM/s1600-h/SOW2_Schwialppass.jpg
Note: On Day 2 we got to wear OCAD GPS units, they are very small and the arm band was very comfortable. OCAD printed our individual routes on maps for us and that is what I scanned in. Pretty cool!
Day 3: http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_93aH6irRG74/SnmcoS8rPzI/AAAAAAAAAGc/2gVH6SbDU6s/s1600-h/SOW3_Glattalp.jpg
Note: I did not run this, but my friend Samantha Saeger did so I scanned her map.

your welcome Dani:-)

Last weekend the US WOC team was selected. I was not able to go to the trials, but I was selected through a petition process. Here is our team:

1. Samantha Saeger, NEOC, 321.36 points
2. Sandra Zürcher, UNO and others, by petition
3. Pavlina Brautigam, WCOC, 293.16
4. Viktoria Brautigam, WCOC, 286.64
5. Cristina Luis, DVOA, 284.55

Alternate: Corinne Porter, DVOA, 274.23

------------

1. Eric Bone, COC, 301.66
2. Eddie Bergeron, SVO, 297.22
3. Ross Smith, CSU, 294.76
4. Boris Granovskiy, CSU, 293.29 (declined)
5. Wyatt Riley, DVOA, 291.16
6. Sergei Zhyk, DVOA, 288.59

Alternate: Clem McGrath, DVOA, 287.66


And here some pictures that I have stollen from Boris Granovskiy's facebook photos (hope you don't mind Boris...)

Picture 1: Women's WOC team (insert me in the picture somewhere:-))
Picture 2: Samantha Saeger (Winner of the trials races)
Picture 3: Viktoria Brautigam
Picture 4: Ross Smith

Our new Trimtex clothes look good!

and... so how am I doing, you ask? Well, I am busy with school and training and that is why I haven't written much. I would like to do a serious update sometime soon, put some maps online and tell you all the details, but that will have to wait a moment.

until later...

News
World news
US elections 2008

Barack Obama to be America's first black president
John McCain praises rival in concession speech as record numbers turn out to vote in historic election


http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/uselections2008

The 2008 orienteering season is over for me and I have to admit, I have not yet mastered the sport of orienteering. This season has had a lot of ups and downs and even though I have seen progress in my ability, I am not satisfied with where I am. I want more, I want to become better. But do we really ever master a task, or does the inner perfectionist in us always drive us to try to become even better. I wonder if Simone Niggli or Thierry Gueorgiou feel like they have mastered orienteering. Probably not, with every race different from the next, there is a continuous search for perfection.

I have decided to try to master something else and I have gone back to school in exercise science and hopefully in two years time I will have a Master’s degree. At least this tunnel has a light at the end of it and I feel confident that I can improve my knowledge of exercise science in this very interesting degree that is focusing on elite sports instead of sports as a promoter of good health.

It will be interesting to see how I handle school and training, but I am determined to continue with orienteering. In two weeks I will go to Hungary and see what the terrain looks like for next year. Until then I am taking a training break and focusing on school.

Here is a picture of me at the World cup in Switzerland (picture from Martin Jörg). I ended up being the 41st ranked participant after Saturday’s race and couldn’t run in the Sprint on Sunday. What a bummer. I hope to change that ranking next year and be a part of the finals more often!

The World Championships consist of four disciplines: sprint, middle, and long distance and a relay. Each discipline has a qualification race and the top 15 in each of the three heats run in the final. The relay does not have a qualification race. I was selected to run all the disciplines this year, including the relay. If things were to go optimally it would have meant running 7 races in 8 days.

On Sunday July 13th I competed in the Sprint qualification. I was already pretty nervous a few days in advance and really had to work hard to get myself into the right state of mind. I managed this and the beginning of my race went well.
The race was quite simple, which meant you had to run really fast. I must have run over my limit and in the state of my oxygen debt I skipped a control, running from number 9 straight to 11. All three controls were on a straight line and I just skipped ahead in my map reading. I only realized this mistake when I was told in the finish that I was disqualified. This was very upsetting. I do however have to admit that I made a big error at the end of the race as well. The sounds of the speaker at the finish and seeing spectators flustered me; I suddenly couldn’t read the map well and lost 1 minute on my 12th control. With this mistake I would have not made the cut off for the final anyway, even if I had visited all of the controls. The only positive thing I can take home from this experience I could see in the splits that if I run a normal good sprint race I am fast enough to make the final.

However, it is difficult with the pressure and stress of running at the World Championships to run “normally”. This mental hurdle is something I am still struggling with.

There was certainly no time to wallow over my mistakes; I had 24 hours time to get ready for the long distance qualification race. I am pleased that I could get over the nerves I felt for the first race and felt confident and ready to race again.

The long distance qualification went well but not great. I had a solid run up until the end, with some small mistakes, but still at a speed where I was within qualifying for the final. I saw ahead on the course and noticed that the last few controls were “tricky” and prepared myself to take them carefully.


I was successful at doing this for the first tricky control but did not have my navigation in control for the next one. I ended up loosing 4 minutes on that control and loosing my chances at making the final.

This WOC week so far has been tough. I feel like I have the ability to make the finals, but it takes getting every part of the race right. There is just no room for error. Luckily, I will get one more chance to see how good I can be. The middle distance qualification and final are tomorrow. I hope to navigate to all the controls in a manor that I am proud of when I run into the finish. If I can achieve this and I have a little bit of luck as well I may make it into the final. That would be a nice way to wrap up my individual races at WOC.

On Saturday, there is the long distance final race, where Marc will be taking part in. In 2005 and 2006 he was 2nd, winning the silver medal. Although he has been fighting with a hip injury since this spring he is ready to fight for the medals again. I will be there cheering for him.


On Sunday there is the last event, the relay. Samantha Saeger will run the first leg for the US team. I will run the 2nd and Samantha’s little sister, Hillary Saeger, will run the last leg. Our best placement at a WOC was 17th place in 2006. We hope to break into the first 15 places this year (and beat Canada too!).

I will keep you informed!

(Pictures from Will Smith: http://orienteering.smugmug.com/)

Biofarm Cup: Sprint race in Aarau!

Today we had the 2nd race of the Biofarm Cup series, which was a sprint in the old town of Aarau. This was a very tricky race, with lots of route choices around all of the uncrossable walls, narrow alleyways and stairwells. I am very satisfied with my race, I was able to “solve” all of the problems during the race and I never fell into a trap. This put me into 7th place, 1 second behind 6th.

I thought the map would be interesting too look at without my route first, so here it is:
Biofarm Cup Sprint- without routes

Biofarm Cup Sprint-with routes

Results are here

Yesterday, Swiss Orienteering announced that WOC 2012, if selected to be in Switzerland (there are no other applicants) will be held in Lausanne. Click here for the News article.

This is exciting news for Marc and I. We live in Magglingen, just above Biel, only about 100km from Lausanne. The woods in our area could be typical for some of the races at WOC 2012. This is very motivating.

(picture from www.map.search.ch)

A lot of the Swiss elite runners have set their sights on this WOC. For many of us, it would be a good "last" WOC. I could see that for myself as well. Actually I started a Fab-club at the beginning of this year with the goal to be in the Top 20 by 2012. With this WOC in our neighbourhood, I hope to be able to prepare well for it and achieve my goal. But until then there are many more World Championships to look forward to.

Of course I am also motivated for this year as well. I just got home from a training camp in Riga, Latvia and Gnesta, Sweden. Marc and I went to Riga with his VeVe club mates David Schneider and Tero Föhr. Heli Jukola was also in our small training group. We were able to train well in the coastal terrain of Riga and I have a good feeling for the first World Cup races and European champs. After several days in Latvia we took the ferry to Stockholm and met my club, OK Tyr, in Gnesta to train in Swedish woods relevant for the Swedish champs this fall. None of us are planning to run in the Swedish champs this fall, but it was a great opportunity to do organized training and spend some time with my club mates. At the end of our trip we ran in the Masenstafetten relay. I ran the first leg and was very happy with my race. David and Marc ran in a relay with VeVe and placed 2nd, SNO within striking distance ahead. Results are here
My computer broke down yesterday evening, so I can not post any pictures from our trip. What a shame.

Also a shame, during my trip in Sweden I injured my back. I was certain that the pain would go away within a few days and I continued to train. Unfortunately this has not been the case and I now have to take some time off of running. I am getting physical therapy and am also certain that the problem will go away soon, but it is still frustrating to deal with an injury. It also means that I will not be running the Swiss Night-O champs this Saturday (you will be able to see results here).

Next week we have the first selection races in Switzerland. The team will be selected for the European Champs based on two sprints on Thursday (10.April), Swiss Champs for Middle Distance on Saturday (12.April), and a Long Distance on Sunday (13.April). I hope that I can run again by then and take part in these races. You will also be able to find results here