This morning the Auckland JWOCers plus Angela and a few more orienteers met at the Auckland Domain to simulate some running drills with the help of Michael Adams. This included some very crazy loosening up movements, the salsa move, robot dance, jumping over ropes and learning some cross-country racing tactics! Well thats the names we gave for the exercises anyway. These drills will be very useful in future trainings.
Then at midday, after recovering, we (Gene, Matt, Toby, Jourdan, Angela, Kate and Imogene) headed out to Muriwai (Woodhill Forest) to do some technical O training. Fifteen minutes jog down the forest road and we were at the infamous 'maze' map.
Matt had set up a small loop course for us to complete. There were no controls or markers out to show the exact control site, although we all managed to do the course with extreme care to ensure we were going to the right places. Many of our tactics for this training was to take it easy and concentrate on reading the contour detail rather than running hard out. The bigger features were definitely helpful.
While the boys seemed to whiz around, the girls took their time and were very careful in finding the exact control sites.
Overall, the training was very effective and appropriate for our preparation to JWOC which is only in 8 weeks! We have heard from some inside knowledge that in Aalborg the 'green' is very 'green', so the green on this map was very close to what we could see in Denmark , also the simulation of running on sand dunes was very helpful in our training.
Another fifteen minutes run back to the cars and a quick stop at the Kumeu Hot Bread shop and we were done with training for the day.
Tomorrow we will head out to the forest for the Auckland Rogaine series ready to kick some butt!
Cheers!
Angela and Kate :)
