World Cup Long

The Long distance qualifier was an interesting race. Here are some post race ramblings from Mike.

THICK WOODS
Many of the big names of the sport had troubles. The woods were well - THICK! Poor runnability and poor visibility. We are used to this in Canada and so instead of whining I viewed this as an advantage. The terrain had similar contour detail to Long Lake in Whitehorse but had similar vegetation to Northumberland Forest near Cobourg Ontario. We are quite lucky to have such varied terrain in Canada. While we may not be specialists in any particular terrain we know what to do in almost everything that we see internationally.

IN GOOD COMPANY
I came 24th (to go along with my 25th in the sprint and middle) in my heat. But look at the people around me in the results list:
22. Tore Sandvik (Norway) - former World Champion
23. Niklas Jonasson (Sweden) - former World Champion
24. Mike Waddington (Canada)
25. Andrey Khramov (Russia) - current World Champion
That is a surprise!

MAKING EXCUSES?
I think this terrain caught a lot of Europeans by surprise and some big name athletes have called it the worst terrain they have ever run in and others have stated that the woods were too thick. Are they making excuses for their poor performances? Making excuses is an orienteering tradition and it is certainly a very Canadian thing. If I had a dime for every excuse I have made the last 20 years racing for Canada I could retire a rich man. But one of the themes of the National Training Camp hosted by Holger and Sandy Hott Johansen earlier this year in Hamilton was "No excuses". We as Canadians have often qualified our International performances by making excuses. Examples: 1) We work harder and longer at our job in North America, 2) Our maps aren't as good, 3) We don't get Government funding, 4) Our forests are too thick yada yada yada. Well, yes, lots of these things are true but the point made at the camp is that we can do things about them. Work less, take time off work, approach sponsors, take out a loan, travel to good maps and faster woods, etc. OR, we can flip those old excuses around into advantages. Yes, some of our forest is thick but as I stated above for today's race being able to relate to running in thick woods was a big advantage.

POSITIVE ATTITUDE
So you can see that having a positive attitude is the theme of today's blog entry. A positive and fun attitude is essential for International orienteering success. My buddy and team mate Brent Langbakk told me of an interesting exercise to do after my disappointing performance 10 days ago at Tiomila. Katarina Smith told him this exercise. Write down what the positives were and what needs improvement from each race you do. It is a very healthy exercise. BUT I think this can also be done by examining overall team performance as well. Instead of focussing on a "STRIKE OUT #3" performance here in Estonia (3 strike outs I guess since we didn't make and finals in all three races) it would be more positive for us as a team to think of what the team positives were and what team things needs improvement. I can think of several things that need improvement but I can also think of several positive headlines as well. My favourite is:

"Chris Piller makes World Cup debut!" Chris is the first cross over athlete from adventure racing in Canada to represent our country in International orienteering. I know several other Canadian adventure racers that want to follow in Chris' footsteps.

EESTI
The Estonians have performed very well here on home court (see photo above). The quality of this World Cup is very high and we have been very impressed with the organization.

I will skip the Long B Final to have a work day and family day with Starr and Emma....but I'm looking forward to finishing off a fun week in Estonia at the relay. I'm racing with Mike Smith and Brent Langbakk.

-Mike