Positives

I have become a stronger navigator and I’m more confident about my navigation. Chris mentioned that he had noticed that I had become a cleaner more clinical orienteer and I think he is right. I have discovered an Amber light in the traffic lighting system and as a result the mistakes I did make were less than two minutes. So I have reduced the big mistake factor and minimised the small mistake factor.

The French terrain and tight competition at the top have forced good orienteering habits upon me as to be a good orienteer at the top there is little room for mistakes.

I have been able to tune into my focus and my preparation was good before the race, getting me to the right level of arousal before the races and maintain my focus the entire race.

Negatives

I didn’t run as confidently as I should have, and lost time as a result of slow running due to under confidence. Had I been more confident I would have realised that it was all a lot easier than I expected and I was more than qualified to be there.

I made some bad route choices in both the sprint and the middle, and I paid for these mistakes. I can work on this and more race experience running well planned events will help with this.

Although my preparation was good, the first 4-5mins of the races I struggled to switch into “race mode”. I think this also probably comes with practise. I think it would have been good to have raced properly in the terrain beforehand as had the top countries. Only doing in-house racing beforehand didn’t give you an idea of how hard you had to run to do well, it was only something you could gain by being there beforehand.

Overall

I felt I had a good WOC, sure it could have gone better, but I felt I did everything I could to ensure that I had the best race that I could possibly achieve. I was not left feeling hard done by or cheated at the end of each race. As Jamie pointed out to me you have to remember where you have come from. Particularly this year the earthquake back in February wasn’t ideal and basically turned the world upside down and changed the way life goes on in Christchurch which is even now still affected.

I was surprised how much the races took out of me mentally and physically and I really found it difficult to run hard in the spectator races afterwards. I was happy with my physical shape before the races however I still believe there is room for improvement there. I was fast for some periods of the race but I struggled to maintain this speed throughout the race. I was fast beforehand but I needed to be fast in the terrain…and the only way to become fast in the terrain is to train in similar terrain. Besides all the disappointment that went with not qualifying I really enjoyed the orienteering, and it never let you take shortcuts! I think the experience has taught me a few things and from here I have a clear direction of where to head next!