At the beginning of August, Gene and I competed in the Canadian Orienteering Championships and North American Orienteering Championships. These were held in Ontario, Canada, and consisted of a middle and long distance race at Mansfield (Canadian Championships); a sprint, sprint relay and knockout sprint in Kingston (North American Championships); and a middle and long in Calabogie near Ottawa (North American Championships). Gene was offered the position of Canadian team coach for the nine days, a new initiative from Canadian High Performance to try to encourage team development and learning from these races, so he was acting as coach most of the time and did not complete all the races. Despite not having done much orienteering at all in the last few years, I decided to join as well and was really glad I did, as this was some of the most challenging and enjoyable orienteering I have done in North America.

The first weekend at Mansfield was a nice introduction back to orienteering for us. The forest was open and easy to run through, and there were many tracks which also helped running speed. On the other hand, the humidity and heat were oppressive and the hills were steep! The first race (middle distance) was very much a learning process for me as I was cautious and stopped multiple times to minimise any bigger mistakes. The main challenge was executing a straight route over several steep spurs and hills, but going around was often no faster. I finished second overall which was rather surprising but did demonstrate the benefit of prioritising careful navigation over flow. The long distance at Mansfield suited New Zealand orienteers very well, as the strategies used felt similar to sand dune forest, despite the difference in vegetation. Terrain was open and fast, and tracks were often in a grid which it paid well to make liberal use of. Again I finished in second and was surprised to learn that the winner took even more (and wider) track routes than me. I think more than anything this illustrated my lack of terrain running, as I was slower in executing the straight routes than I would have liked to be.

The sprint days in Kingston were all excellent. The individual sprint was probably the least exciting (one multi-level area added a challenge), but the knockout was fantastic. It was well organized, there were no map issues and the courses were interesting. They were not the most technically demanding I have run, but many of the other competitors thought they were, which indicates that technical sprint course setting is a little behind in North America compared to Oceania. In the knockout, both Gene and I made it through to the final, which was a straight race against the other competitors. Gene finished second and I was third. Gene’s result is by far more impressive as there was a lot of depth in the men’s competition, and sounded very strategic: he followed the faster runners in the first half without navigating, using that time to plan the second half of the course, and then was able to execute the best routes in the second half. There was also some drama in the men’s race as we saw one of the top men getting stuck behind an impassible fence after being in the lead! During my race, I was in the top three most of the time – at one point briefly in the lead – but felt I had to keep map contact the whole time unlike Gene. I was out-sprinted at the end by Emma Waddington and Robyn Astridge, who ran an impressive series of races and have some good top end speed.

The final weekend at Calabogie was in some highly technical and physically challenging terrain. The ground was stony and there were many rocks and cliffs on the map. I always find this terrain particularly hard as certain features I would expect to be mapped as cliffs or rocks are mapped as contour features. Luckily we had a model map the day before to get used to this. Running speed was slow with irregular ground underfoot and dense undergrowth at times. I approached the middle distance with a lot of caution, but despite this on the first three controls I got careless with my compass coming into the control and lost unnecessary time in the control circle or nearby, despite executing 90% of the leg well. I was at least able to realise this and after control 3 my navigation was mostly good. The course finished with several downhill legs on a ski slope where for those paying attention, there were mown areas through the rough open long grass that were optimal to run through! I didn’t realise this initially and was penalized for this oversight by stumbling and thrashing through the grass. 

The final long distance I would have to say was my favourite. This was pure long distance orienteering, both physically and technically challenging. In the women’s course, the key leg was a long route choice from 9 to 10, where there was a straight route through the forest downhill, then up the backside of the ski slope in a steep climb, with other wider routes to the right and left that utilized some tracks. I chose to run straight, and ended up with the fastest time for the leg. However physically I did feel pretty destroyed after that for the final few controls on the ski slope, which included more uphill legs this time! The run would have been quite good were it not for a large mistake at the first control where I attempted to go straight on a diagonal leg across a slope, with many small re-entrants that were hard to keep track of. Gene also struggled with his first control which had a similar theme, although the control site was different. I think we both found our compass skills were not as strong as if we had been orienteering regularly.
Overall it was an excellent nine days of racing, and I would highly recommend future races in the Ottawa area especially!”
by Imogene Scott

Results:
LONG |  Sun 4 August
Imogene ” Fun race and terrain, interesting route choices as well. Took a mix of straight lines and trails. “
Gene “Really enjoyed the terrain today, very flowy. Clean on the ground and very few fallen trees. The leafiness lowers the visibility, especially in the green areas, so you have to have good direction and stick to your guns. Map looks easy with the trails, and you can make the routes very easy if you want, but the trails aren’t very good.”
W21 2nd Imogene Scott
M21 9th Gene Beveridge

SPRINT |  Tue 6 August
Imogene says “Pretty clean race. Hurting at the end. Continued the string of second places”
Gene ” it of an easy sprint,but quite fun in the old prison grounds. Off the pace today for 9th place in a pretty deep field.”
W21 2nd Imogene Scott
M21 9th Gene Beveridge

CLUB RELAY |  Wed 7 August
Imogene says: I did not run in the North American competition, just in a club team, and the teams were a mix of skill levels so it is hard to compare results here. 

KNOCK-OUT SPRINT  |  8 August
Imogene says of K-O semi ” Bit scrappy on this one, led the pack into a bad route choice but still managed to finish ahead” Of the K-O final: “Fast and furious final race”
Gene about K-O Semi “Decent race taking the initiative after control 3. Small error at the end, but had a little buffer back to 3rd so not too stressful. Legs definitely feeling better than earlier.”
Gene says of KO final” Straight course for the final, with decent route choices and lots of changes of direction. I sat on the back until 5 (out of 15), and attacked hard from there. I did no active navigation up to that point, purely planning ahead to make sure I had the route choices right. This tactic worked really well, helped by a big mistake from the favourite who was in the lead at the time. I also note that avoiding sharp turns is extra important when you are fully sending, so I think I would have taken one different route towards the end to avoid a tights 180 turn around a wall”

K-O QUAL 1:
2nd Gene Beveridge
1st Imogene Scott

K-O QF:
1st Gene Beveridge
3rd Imogene Scott

K-O SF:
2nd Gene Beveridge
1st Imogene Scott

K-O FINAL:
2nd Gene Beveridge
3rd Imogene Scott

NORTH AMERICAN CHAMPS
MIDDLE  | Sat 10 Aug
‘Scrappy at the start… I can tell I haven’t done as much terrain running for a while. Surprised but happy to sneak onto the podium in 3rd with that run”
W21 3rd Imogene Scott
Gene didn’t do a competitive race, but went out for a run in the terrain. Gene’s time in the official results was not correct (as he started 1 hour late and just did the course casually due to coaching duties).

LONG  | Sun 11 Aug
Imogene says “Super tricky and vague in there…. S very physically brutal race.”
Gene says “Tough day, 4th in the end. Bad start.. Some mind-blowingly bad bearing to the first control, which to be fair was a very hard leg. Fairly fast relocation, but the extra distance cost me 3 minutes.
W21 3rd Imogene Scott
M21 4th Gene Beveridge