From 4 to 100 thousand
August 8, 2007 ...by Michal Smola
The last map-training weekend of fo-ot before WOC2007 took place in surroundings of Zlin. We placed emphasis on two different orienteering disciplines - sprint and long distance - and we used uncommonly great range of map scales – from 1:4 000 to 1:100 000. On a schedule there were two sprits, one middle in terrain relevant long in Ukraine and one unusual long. Each training reminded us a different important principle for success in a race.
We started on Friday afternoon with sprint training in the spa town Luhacovice. The course combined fast city sprint in a park with spa hotels and a forest sprint in a steep slope with dense network of indistinct paths.
The forest part was a good simulation of sprint qualification in Ukraine I hope. What I have found difficult on this training was a great number of people visiting the spa. I did not find the good feeling for pushing hard among many slowly walking and relaxing people. It is important to be prepared for such situations and I have to work on this psychical side of a performance.
Saturday morning fo-of headed to the town of Vizovice for another sprint. It was crucial to find start on the map quickly to gain time to understand a system of the course.
The course consisted of three loops with a node control which had to be punched three times. As I did not checked properly surroundings of the start I had big problem to locate the start on the map even it was close to a big building.
After some two hours of rest we started another training, middle distance, in a hilly terrain partly relevant for WOC2007 long and relay. There were some route choices where can be lost a lot of time.
But what I have remembered after this training is to focus all the time until I cross the finish line because I did one big mistake to an easy control close to the finish.
Next day, it was Sunday, we started from Zlin in early morning and we drove to hilly forested area some 40km to the west. There are some few orienteering maps in that area
but this time we used a tourist's map with scale 1:100 000 for a change. The course consisted of only four controls and it took us 152 minutes of running. The map was inexact but we learnt with time that the most important thing is to trust compass all the time, whatever scale it is.
