Emma WAddington's Blog
JWOC Sprint "The JWOC sprint was a lot more technical than we were expecting, with lots more traps and zig-zaggy routechoices." - Emma Sherwood. The sprint race took place in a small village called Åmot right up in the mountains. The race area was a hillside with residential areas built right up into it. There were a few large building complexes after the spectator loop to make things more interesting. To start the race off, we had a 1300m jog from the quarantine area to the actual start along a road. From here the girls went into some wooded area, then a long leg with debatable routechoice to 2. There were another couple legs with a few possible routechoices then we passed through the spectator control. This last loop was the same for the men and women so it was very fun comparing routes and watching the GPS tracks. Then came an extremely long finish chute in which most people collapsed at the end. (myself included) This race went very well for me. I focused on my 3 goals: Control, ahead and push. I checked my control descriptions, read and planned ahead and push hard the whole race. The hills and the heat got to me late on in the race but I still tried to look like a wasn't dying. Coming down the finish I heard the announcer say that I was currently in 3rd position... (?!?!?!?) Being an early starter has it's perks ;) I found it really cool to watch all the fast runners come in and seeing how their times compared to mine. The finish between Robertson and Niemi (the 1st and 2nd men) was incredibly exciting to watch, the New Zealanders were going nuts. (frankly, everyone was so) It's an amazing experience to finish 28th in this race, a top Canadian position in the sprint :D I look forward to more of these sprints and the sprint at WOC in a couple of weeks! JWOC Middle Q "You are stronger than the vegetables!" - Emma Sherwood (twice in one post, crazy right?) That was the mantra for today since this terrain has some thicker sections than other maps like Sauraai and the model map. Unlike yesterday, today was cold and raining. To start off my day I got a puddle of water dumped onto my head from the tent at the start. Yep, that was cold and totally not enjoyable. I stayed pretty cold the rest of the race and that distracted me a little more than I wanted. At the finish I even needed Pia to untie my shoelaces and take off my control description because I couldn't even feel anything from elbow down. (*insert Emma and Pia singing "When your hands don't work like they used to before" to the tune of Thinking Out Loud by Ed Sheeran*) I ran course C, which was different than what Pia and Emma S had since A and C seemed to have some longer legs and B had more shorter ones. The goals for this race included good compass, looking up, and taking things carefully. I had some small bobbles here and there but I accomplished what I wanted for most legs. Overall this race was good, qualifying me into the B final tomorrow! Huge congrats to Alex for making the A final, as well as Amanda and Morten from the USA! Upon arriving back at the cabin, Trevor (who was locked out of his cabin) joined Pia, Emma and I in the sauna for lunch. (We were hungry and cold, ok??) It got toasty in there pretty quickly and we were all much happier to be dry and warm. See you at the finals tomorrow!
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The past few days have been very eventful here in the Norwegian mountains. It all started on Tuesday evening at dinner when Emma Sherwood proceeded to knock a stuffed bird down from a shelf in the dinning hall. In a fit of giggles, it was very hard to put that darn bird back up on the shelf. Poor Bird. The real story begins on Canada Day when we Canucks decided to start the prank war with our neighbours from down south. The boys spent all afternoon scheming and planning "Operation Big Beaver" ... a very precise plan to break into the USA's cabin and remove their bathroom doors and put them under the mattress of their beds. The boys practiced many different break-in techniques, timing it down to under 5 minutes! They had devised a plan to get in through the windows, but the Americans had kindly left their doors unlocked. The whole thing was GoPro'd at multiple angles... check the whole thing out here! With the mission completed, we sat and waited for the revenge. While watching our footage, we heard some commotion up on the American hillside so we moved into hiding. "ACT NATURAL!!" Alex screamed, and that apparently meant to Jan Erik: close and lock all the doors and windows quickly, the Americans will never know it was us! USA fought back by taking all of our laundry and putting it on their roof... how lame. We celebrated the successful heist by devouring some ice cream and singing O Canada... and by devouring ice cream I actually mean we attacked the poor thing with spoons and it ended up on Emma S's neck... That proceeded in a giggle fit. The next day while shopping, Emma and I found some delish treats, you can probably guess why... Thursday evening, we invented a new game... sticky forehead tug-of-war. This consists of Emma's stretchy clothesline rope with small suction cups on either end attached to 2 foreheads and intense concentration. The champion so far is Alex, winning with his perfect technique. On Thursday evening after dinner, we decided to show everyone how to canoe (or, Canadian if you're going by the Norwegian term) properly. The girls jumped into one boat, Raphael and Jan Erik into another and we had a race down the lake. The only problem was that there were only 2 paddles between the 6 boats and the rest were oars, and the front seat of the canoe was facing in... weird. Despite our lack in proper equipment, we successfully managed to navigate our boat through the rocks and away from the boys. They then ambushed us and filled our boat with about half a lake's worth of water, dumping Pia into the chilly-ness! She was hardcore though and got us out of there quickly. Our paparazzi, Alex and Robbie in a quite romantic looking row-boat-for-two, (The Notebook style) were there to document the whole thing! We went back up to the cabin to devour Emma (S)'s leftover Birthday Cake that Pia and I made. The cake turned out quite well for two mediocre chefs with less than mediocre ingredients and tools! Stay tuned for some more amazing stories!
After a week and a day of being in beautiful Norway, things have finally settled in. Most of us have gotten used to the sun that never really sets and the constant smelly wet sock stench in the doorway... and of course, the stunning views. Since arriving in Rauland on Monday afternoon, we've done lots of training, map analysis and race scenarios in preparation for JWOC that starts on Sunday.
On Monday, we visited Sauraai for a map walk and a short course to get used to the marshes (AKA highways) and the rest of the unique terrain. We visited this map again on Tuesday for a couple other exercises including a mem-o and some windmill courses. For me, this was good mental training since I wasn't able to run very fast with a sore shin. (It's all healed now, for those who are wondering!) This terrain is nothing like anything back in the Hammer so it's taken a while to get used to. That afternoon we visited Juvstaul, a map relevant to the JWOC middle. The terrain was quite a bit different than Sauraai, consisting of some blander hillsides, thicker veg, areas with less detail and then some with lots of cliffs and knolls. I walked the line-o because of my shin and it was quite tricky at first, but once I got into the map it was very fun. On the most important day of the summer (Canada Day, eh) we did a mock race at Sauraai to find our comfortable race pace in this terrain. This went well for the first two checkpoints since I was able to read along but still maintain a decent speed. The long leg was tricky, but after some GPS analysis, we were able to figure out what went wrong and what we needed to change. On Thursday we did another mock race, this time for the relay. This was good training to work on getting into the zone and focusing with people all around. That afternoon we did some sprint training in a nearby town which will be very similar to the JWOC sprint. After all of theses trainings, we are all feeling more confident in this terrain. I've learned lots of important things that I can apply to my upcoming big races and I'm feeling more ready. Check out my attackpoint log for some more detailed training descriptions. Stay tuned for some more funny stories! |