Like Learning a Language

Look at that pile of maps! Each one of those is a high quality mountain bike orienteering map and I rode on ALL of those in ONE WEEK! Nuts!!

Being able to travel to Hungary was amazing. Representing Orienteering USA was an honor. Congregating with 24 other countries for a World Championship blew my mind. But the really cool thing that I've never gotten to do before? Orienteer for a week straight! Honing orienteering skills is really like learning a language, since immersion does wonders for rapid development!

Many of us review our route choices after a meet and summarize the lessons to be learned that day. "I need to work on my memory," or "I need to always plan my exit and roll through controls faster." But the lessons learned by orienteering day after day are harder to articulate. It's not so much that you're learning to "do this, not that," instead, you are carving out pathways in your brain that make the process of orienteering familiar and faster. To make it automatic, so that each decision requires less thought. In language, the words fall out of your mouth before you've had time to translate it in your head. In orienteering, route choice decisions are made quickly and with confidence.

So even if you don't have the opportunity to travel abroad and compete in a world championship-- look around you, what mapped areas are nearby? You might be able to orienteer for 7 days straight in your home state!

Charting Progress

The chart below shows my training hours and activities since I (Rebecca) returned from Hungary. There are a couple things I like about this graph:

One- that the week of August 25th, the activity was pure mountain bike orienteering (purple).

Two- all I did the week after Hungary was go paddle boarding once (light blue). It was awesome!

Three- my hours are following a nice progression, so I'm getting back on track for the winter season!

Four- the next week that will be added to this graph will include a 9 hour rogaine, which will be a huge spike on the chart! I'm excited to log that entry. 

This sport is awesome!

Greetings everyone! I was going to title this post something about today's final race but decided to name it how I really feel about this sport :)
I'm sitting in the hallway of the hostel where we recently found a wifi hotspot. I'm hanging out after my race - the Long Final race. It was not my best performance but I'll take it. We were told we would receive two maps at the start today but only received one. Since I was first to start, I thought maybe I wasn't doing something right so I was frazzled. I had to refocus and get back into the "game". Not a big deal, I'm use to learning about this sport as I race. Halfway through my course, I made some errors and Steph from Great Britian caught up to me and we pretty much raced side by side. Occasionally we would choose different routes but would end up at the control around the same time. We were nearing the finish with about 3km left and my rear tire went flat, so sad. I had sealant in it so I chose to just pump up the tire and not change it. I had to do this a couple of times but made it to the finish. The finish of the long race and the finish of the World Championships ended in the town center of Veszprem with locals cheering as we rode through the streets. It was an awesome way to finish!
My bike is packed and I'm waiting for Rebecca and Abra to finish their races. We're going to pack as much as we can this afternoon so we can relax and have a fun time at the banquet tonight.  The Austrians said they have special costumes, this should be an interesting evening :)
Thanks everyone who supported us to Hungary, this has been AWESOME!!!

MTBO Greetings from Hungary

 A few photos from earlier races ....

Rebecca in action

Abra concentrating

Sue and control scenery

Relay Tactics

We are gearing up for our team relay that will take place tomorrow (Friday). Each leg of the race will be about a Middle Distance length, which for the Women's Elite will be a 12k (if you take the optimal route!) with 12-14 controls. The course will be set in an active military area, so parts of the area will have deep, narrow ditches that were once used for tank repair, and some sections will be marked on the map with magenta to signify places where large amounts of old wire are strewn about. This is the first time since the 40's or 50's that this area has been mapped. An old orienteering map used to exist, but they think all copies have been confiscated since then.
The three of us spent a little of last night and some of this morning trying to choose our spots in the relay. We spoke to riders from both Germany and Sweden and found their placement tactics varied from each another. Anke from Germany suggested that the strongest physical rider with fewer orienteering skills might go first so they could follow other riders in the chaos of the mass start. Sweden is planning on having their strongest rider last so as to catch up any time that passed during the other legs. We also just found out from Great Britain that they'll be sending out their strongest rider and orienteer-er (you might remember her from planning out her first five controls at the start line of the Sprint course earlier this week...) first to start them off well ahead of the pack. Sue returned from the Team Leader's meeting tonight saying that the type of relay we'll be doing will basically disallow or confuse you if you follow anyone, so that's off the table anyway. Following anyone can be helpful and also devastating, as I sadly discovered on my twelfth control during the Middle distance race. I'm still getting over that mistake.

We mulled over this a bit and have decided that Rebecca will finish up our relay because she has the strongest orienteering skills and won't have any issues if she's by herself in the middle of the terrain without anyone to fall in behind. 
Sue will start us off in the first leg as she feels more comfortable with the wrestling of the map to the map holder and the general excitement and nerves that will be present for the mass start. I'll be holding things together in the middle, and hopefully my sprinter's legs will help us hang with some of the other teams.

Only two days of racing left! I can't believe it's almost over. At this point I can't imagine the bikes without map holders on them, nor a race ending without someone handing me a bottle of sparkling water.

Rest Day Sprint

After a couple training days, a model event, the Long Qualifier, the Middle and the Sprint- today was a welcome rest day for the Elites! The Masters, however, were not resting but pedaling hard on a predominantly urban sprint course.

Needing to spin our legs and being immensely curious about the urban style of sprint mtb-o, we drove to the Masters course and nabbed some Women's 40+ maps once the course had opened.

Wow- what a cool place for a mtb-o sprint! Before we even reached the start, we were slipping and spinning up loose red gravel alleyways that climbed out of town and into the trees. We were in the hustle and bustle of a lakefront town just minutes ago and now on a secluded backroad.

Once we started, we decided to take turns navigating to each control which eventually evolved into us all going separate ways to meet at the next control and discover which route was indeed faster! It was a rest day, so we also took the time to take in a few hilltop views of the lake. Sue had the brilliant idea to do the 'superman' on her bike in front of such a vista while Abra took a photo. We also happened to be near a control which two young volunteers were "manning" while laying on towels in their bikinis. Maybe one of the easier volunteer positions.. The girls giggled and thought Sue was funny. They asked her to do it again so they could take their own picture!

We finished the day with a local microwaved hamburger and a dip in the giant thigh-deep lake. We're feeling refreshed and ready for the relay tomorrow!

-Rebecca

Can U Spell OUSA?

USA! USA! USA!

Well, with the O surely implied even if not visible, here's MTBO Team USA wearing the official OUSA shirts and doing a fine job with the remaining letters.