Since the beginning of november I've been very focused on building a good basis of training and the main goal is to perform a good role on...traning. Not competing. However, it's been a very busy time for me (as all year seems to be like). I have been studying a lot for my end examination in november, working on my master teses, having classes, training...and eating and sleeping :) Basically, I've been like a machine rulled by timetables to all activities. So I think it's quite obvious that time for ORIENTEERING training is few: in december I only ran 16km of orienteering, which comparing to the 340km of running, is nothing.
1 +1 is 2...the same as orienteering races without orienteering training is...mistakes!
Two weeks ago I ran the International Meeting of Arraiolos and I proved myself that training without map for long periods make this happens:
long distance (2nd place):
sprint distance at night (1st place):
middle distance WRE (1st place):
After deep analysis of the disaster of such races, it's possible to find out some reasons: (1) lack of map training, (2) some related difficulty with concentration on my own orienteering and (3) different kind of cartography used on this maps.
This time the maps were drawn by finish cartographers that used very different criteria than those used before on this type of terrain. In my oppinion, it's very good kind of cartography and very helpfull for the orienteers as only the main features are on the map. Althought, I think it is very usefull on very detailed stony areas but not absolutly necessary on other areas with not so much stones... Personally I preferd the middle distance map, drawn my Tiago Aires and Raquel Costa, portuguese cartographers and elite runners too, besides using the same style of long distance map. I confess I love the way they draw maps and it was a pitty that they dind't draw the map of the long distance.
Now it's time to find a hole on the scheaduled life for some orienteering training and beginning to work on mental training too ;)
