{"id":1838,"date":"2010-07-29T21:42:24","date_gmt":"2010-07-29T20:42:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.stodgell.co.uk\/?p=1838"},"modified":"2010-07-29T21:59:38","modified_gmt":"2010-07-29T20:59:38","slug":"oo-cup-day-4-5","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.stodgell.co.uk\/?p=1838","title":{"rendered":"OO Cup – Day 4 & 5"},"content":{"rendered":"

The assembly for \"\"days 4 and 5 of OO Cup 2010 were at the top of an enormous climb from the car park, but this tough ascent was rewarded by an assembly and finish area in a gorgeous alpine meadow, with stunning views and complete with cows (bells and all).
\nDay 4 for me dawned as a bit of a nightmare. The internet connection at work back in the UK had failed the previous afternoon and I spent most of the morning on the phone, looking a bit of an idiot standing on the biggest rocks I could find trying to get a reliable \u00a0signal. I went straight from stressed IT support mode to the start of my race,\u00a0and I was not really in the right frame of mind for a good performance. Although I only lost a few minutes to mistakes the combination of this and a lack of running speed put me well down the field in 13\"\"<\/a>th. Still, running through sunny alpine meadows with stunning views takes some beating and eventually later that day I got everything back up and running in Manchester and I relaxed with a great meal out with old orienteering friends in a local restaurant specialising in local food.<\/span><\/p>\n

Going into the last day I was lying 6th<\/sup> overall but just 3 minutes down on 4th<\/sup>. After the long\u00a0climb back up to the alpine meadows I shadowed Holly round her final course of the week. For a W10 course it was pretty full on with lots of controls off tracks and I had to give a little more input than usual (including learning the basics of compass bearings!)\u00a0but she got round OK, and finished top Brit in 5th<\/sup> place. As some children on the M\/W10 courses\u00a0are shadowed to varying degrees and some not at all, the organisers don’t award prizes for the top 3 like they do for every other age category. Instead all the kids are called up to the podium at the prize giving which is a nice way to reward their efforts.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>My start was in an idyllic position in yet another meadow with cracking views. I got a great start and seemed to really flow through the course. I coped well with the change in technicality from the fairly straight forward open meadows into the rocky steep kaarst forest and ran cleanly. I then got into a head to head race with an Austrian which was great fun. Other than a little wobble where he pulled back ahead just before the drinks control I lead us through the rest of the technical forest until, coming out, we picked up fellow Brit, Nigel Wright, and the race intensified. As we neared the final few controls we seemed to get faster and faster, swapping the lead between the 3 of us. I nailed the penultimate control dropping the Austrian but Nigel was tucked in behind as we punched the last. I gave it everything on the run in but he was just too fast for me on the line. I knew I had had a good run and was pleased with another 4th<\/sup>\u00a0position but this time only a minute and a half down on Roger Goddard, one of the UK’s best M35s at present. The winner, Akseli Ahtiainen from Finland, however, was a full 10 mins faster than me \u2013 an awesome run. <\/span><\/p>\n

Unfortunately it wasn’t quite enough to bring me up to 4th<\/sup> but I finish the week very happy with 5th<\/sup> overall at one of the most technical orienteering 5 days in the European calendar, but that wee stop on day 3 cost me dear – I was only 17 seconds down on 4th place!!<\/span><\/p>\n

Full results for all days and overall can be found\u00a0at http:\/\/www.oocup.com\/<\/a>
\nLots of photos are here http:\/\/picasaweb.google.com\/mark.stodgell\/OOCUP2010<\/a>#<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The assembly for days 4 and 5 of OO Cup 2010 were at the top of an enormous climb from the car park, but this tough ascent was rewarded by an assembly and finish area in a gorgeous alpine meadow, with stunning views and complete with cows (bells and all). Day 4 for me dawned … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “OO Cup – Day 4 & 5”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1838","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-competitions","category-orienteering"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stodgell.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1838","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stodgell.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stodgell.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stodgell.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stodgell.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1838"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/www.stodgell.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1838\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1847,"href":"http:\/\/www.stodgell.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1838\/revisions\/1847"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stodgell.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1838"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stodgell.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1838"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stodgell.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1838"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}