Czech training camp, off to Oringen

Last week I went to Czech Republic on a pre-WOC 2008 camp with SEDS (mostly young Scottish athletes). We stayed close to the Polish border and trained a lot around Vidnava, a bit north of where WOC will be next year. Loads of photos here.

We trained pretty hard, and then at the end of the week, we took part in the Grand Prix Silesia. That was a tough schedule, with 4 races in about 40 hours, with winning times of 15, 40, 30 and 70. I won the 'middle', and came 2nd in the sprint, the 'short' and the classic, and overall I was way ahead. Results here. Event website and splits and stuff here.

When I get my scanner working I'll put some maps up - crazy 1:2000 in the sprint and short!

Off the Oringen tomorrow - looking forward to a nice 19.7km mass start on Monday. Hmm....

WOC selection races with maps and GB WOC team

photo Brad Connor

Sprint
The sprint was held in the grounds of Stirling University, and provided a better venue than I had expected. The first few controls were reasonably tricky, then it was fairly straightforward orienteering around the buildings, with some interesting route choices. I made the right choices, and I won the race by about 15 seconds. Results here

Classic
The classic was held on Craig Leach, a tough steep woodland with beautiful detailed fast forest on the plateau on top. The first part of the course had a lot of short legs around some really fantastic runnable but complex area of the map, then after the butterfly there were some longer legs, and we went onto the less detailed and hillier part of the map. I caught Matt Speake and was caught by Jon Duncan around number 23, and we ran together for part of the course. We both got away from Matt around 27, and Jon ran away from me at number 29. I was happy with my run and pleased with 3rd place. Results here

Middle
The last race was the middle, and after 2 good days I was feeling fairly relaxed. I felt in my best shape of the weekend too, and if anything I pushed too hard around the course. Carse Wood proved to be sublimely fast, and very tricky in a vague way. It was very difficult to read the ground shape in places, and at several points I felt I was running too fast to stay in control. made 3 small mistakes (around 30-45seconds each), and little bits here and there to finish 4th, about 2 minutes behind Jamie. Disappointing performance, result ok though. Results here

Full results, splits and splitbrowser here

Selections
Yesterday the team was announced

Women’s Team
Sprint distance: Helen Bridle, Helen Palmer and Pippa Whitehouse.
Middle distance: Rachael Elder, Jenny Johnson and Helen Winskill.
Long distance: Helen Bridle, Helen Winskill and Pippa Whitehouse
Relay: Helen Bridle, Helen Winskill and Pippa Whitehouse
Reserve places will be filled from within the team.

Men’s Team
Sprint distance: Jon Duncan, Graham Gristwood and Jamie Stevenson.
Middle distance: Matt Crane, Scott Fraser and Graham Gristwood.
Long Distance: Jon Duncan, Scott Fraser and Jamie Stevenson
Relay: Jon Duncan, Graham Gristwood and Jamie Stevenson.
Mark Nixon and Matt Speake are the non-travelling reserves.

I am running Sprint, Middle and Relay, which are the 3 I wanted to run, so the first major goal of WOC 2007 is complete, now for the hard part, actually doing well in those races.