One month to DK06!

Posted by Mike….
Twenty three years ago I represented Canada in my first international orienteering race. It was the Junior International (which would be renamed JWOC a few years later). It was held in Silkeborg Denmark. Fitting that my last race for Canada at the International level will at the World Orienteering Champs in Silkeborg in one month from today (well yesterday now because I had trouble posting this last night). Last weekend I had a mini training camp in Silkeborg to familiarize myself with the terrain and to test my knee. About an hour south of Stockholm on the long drive I asked myself why I was going? This can’t be worth it. I won’t be able to run, I thought. But I wanted to see what the terrain looked like so the visualization and armchair orienteering exercises I do in the final month will be that much ‘clearer’. The training camp was with the GBR test races. They had a sprint on Friday, middle on Saturday and long on Sunday. On Friday I did some sprint training on a map south of Mindeparken in the morning. Mindeparken is the site of the WOC sprint race. I liked what I saw. The woods were mixed but not as open as I thought they would be. The ground was very hard but the area felt familiar. In the afternoon I ran the GRB sprint race in the Botanical Gardens. It went quite well considering I had a sore knee. Unfortunately the middle distance the next day was not so successful (I had to quit because of the pain) and the Sunday long distance – well I didn’t even try to start. So I used the remainder of the weekend to visit many different maps and well it felt like home. Very much like the Ganaraska forest (minus the poison ivy) and the awesome Copeland Forest near Barrie (minus the MTB trails) and a bit like the Dundas Valley (minus the soft ground). Big hills, some intricate contour detail, open woods, route choice, hanging re-entrants on big hills and a mix of coniferous and deciduous forest. No wonder Alan Mogensen (Denmark) won the 1992 Ganaraska World Cup race. He was running on essentially home terrain. I'm sure I'll feel the same way in one month and that is a great feeling to have when standing on the start line in an international race.

As I mentioned my training camp was together with the GBR test races. I helped pick up some controls for them and in return got to participate in their races. Having their team trials right in Denmark in the WOC training terrain and on Danish maps sounds like an impressive dedication to the sport and the best way to select a team. But remember that the cost to fly UK-DK is less than the cost to fly from Hamilton to Edmonton. Nevertheless, it was an interesting test race. The GBR men have great depth with Stevenson coming 10th in the sprint, 6th in the middle before winning the long easily. BJ, coming off the ankle injury, was far back in the sprint (but still ahead of me) but was added to their WOC team in sprint. The Brits are very well organized and have clear goals to win medals. It was great spending the weekend with the Brits - too bad I couldn't run very well. I have to get this knee working again soon.

Windy Denmark

Denmark is windy - very windy! So it is the perfect place to have windpower. In fact, Denmark is the World leader in Wind Energy with 20% of their electricity produced from wind power (25% by 2008). New turbines shown above. Old windmill from Estonia shown below.

High Anxiety

The country of Denmark is comprised of several islands. Until recently, both cars and trains had to be ferried over to the islands. There are now bridges at two of the main routes – a 16km combination bridge and tunnel between Malmo, Sweden and Copenhagen and an 18km bridge between the island of Sjaelland and the island of Fyn. Since we were traveling to the third island of Jylland, we had to drive across both of those bridges – correction, Mike had to drive across both of those bridges (Starr doesn’t drive standard). The thing is, Mike has a fear of heights. Add strong gusts of wind to the drive and – well – major panic attack. Thank goodness it wasn’t raining!

We did make it across both bridges and it did take a good while before Mike’s heart rate had slowed back down to normal. Three days to recover before we had to drive back to Sweden and back across the bridges. Go figure it was pouring rain.

Legoland

On Sunday, Emma and Starr spent the day at Legoland in Billund in Denmark. We went on almost all of the rides there – and there were lots! Our favourites were: the rollercoasters, the Viking River Splash, the caterpillar, the lifty-up drop thing, animal safari, the thing that’s round that you sit in and it lifts you up so that you can see all of Legoland, the canoe ride, and the mine ride. Oh, and the jet racer. Emma really enjoyed playing at the Lego play tables which were set up beside the line-ups so that the kids could play while the parents stood in line.



Of course, Legoland isn’t mainly about rides, it’s about Lego! There were hundreds of lego statues thoughout the park including a replica of the Statue of Liberty which is over 8 metres high and took over 1.4 million bricks to build! The most impressive constructions were in Miniland where there were replicas of different cities and landmarks from around the world. The attention to detail was amazing and we really enjoyed looking at what the lego people were doing in the displays. Following is a picture of a replica of a city in Europe. Can anyone name where it is?

Swedish 101: Godis

Godis, pronounced “Gooo - deees” is the Swedish word for candy – kind of a fitting word don’t you think?

The selection in Sweden has to be the best we have seen anywhere in our travels. Even Willie Wonka would be envious! Candy is most commonly sold in bulk. You take a bag and a scoop and fill it with whatever variety and combinations of candy you prefer – one standard price per kilo. Emma’s favourite mix includes mostly jellies – dolphins, keys, lips, fuzzy peaches, and butterflies. Starr likes the traditional berries and the licorice zebras while Mike prefers fuzzy peaches, wine gums and Bassett’s licorice allsorts.
While you can buy chocolate bars like we have at home in Canada, the large flat Willie Wonka type bar is the most common here and comes in a wide variety of flavours. It also usually takes up a good 4 – 5 metres of 4 shelf high aisle space! To get an idea of how sweet the Swedish sweet tooth is, consider the prizes at the games booths at Amusement Parks. The occasional booth will have stuffed animals as prizes, but the most sought after prizes are the giant 1 metre tall chocolate bars – namely Toblerone and Maribou. Now that’s a sweet tooth!

'It's the little differences"

"It's the little differences" The famous first words from Vincent Vega in the movie Pulp Fiction as he describes the differences between Europe and North America. Those words are shortly followed by " I mean they got the same **** over there that they got here, but it's just - it's just there it's a little different".

Example! (#1)
Take a Paris Taxi for example. We have a taxis in Canada too but in Canada they have to take you to where you want to go. When we arrived in Paris we realized we didn't have an address for our hotel. We knew it had a view of the Louvre so took the Metro to that area and then looked for a phone book to get the address. We couldn't find one in any telephone booth and no store had one either so we thought we'll ask a Taxi driver to take us to our hotel which was close by. It was very hot and lugging luggage through Paris was not our idea of fun. Well 12 Euros and several km later he dumped us at a Monestary well outside the Louvre region of Paris. Another 8 Euro taxi ride back and we found our hotel - 3 blocks from where we got into the first taxi. What really ticked us what that when the first taxi driver realized what he had done he just drove away. We should have become suspicious when he asked at least 4 other drivers where the hotel was and we started driving by the Arc de Triumph. Or we should have looked at the liscence plate.
Example! (#2)
Mike: And you now what they call a... a... a Quarter Pounder with Cheese in Paris?
Starr: They don't call it a Quarter Pounder with cheese?
Mike: No man, they got the metric system. They wouldn't know what a Quarter Pounder is.
Starr: Then what do they call it?
Mike: They call it a Royale with cheese.
Starr: A Royale with cheese. What do they call a Big Mac?
Mike: Well, a Big Mac's a Big Mac, but they call it le Big-Mac.

Example! (#3)
Mike: But, you know what they put on french fries in Paris instead of ketchup?
Starr: What?
Mike: Mayonnaise.
Starr: God damn!
Mike: I seen 'em do it, man, they drown 'em in that ****.

A Kid’s eye on Paris

Posted by Emma....

I thought it was really funny at the airport when Mommy saw that we were going to Paris.
I thought it was really fun to go up the Eiffel Tower and I was surprised when we got back down and looked up and saw that we hadn’t even been half-way up!

It was fun when we went to Notre Dame and I got to take pictures of the church and of Mommy and Daddy.
We got to take a boat ride around the river in the middle of the city. And there were a whole bunch of bridges. (picture at top)

On the last day we went to the Musee d’Orsay because the Louvre was closed. I liked that museum because it had lots of statues and pictures. I have a book called “The Little Dancer” and I saw the statue from the book there!

I really liked the crepes that we ate in Paris – especially the Nutella and banana one!
I did not like when every evening in front of our hotel, groups of people would start to clap and sing.

I thought that our hotel was really cool because our room had two floors. One floor with a sofa, bathroom and a TV and another floor with a bathroom, a bed and a TV. We really enjoyed having a bathtub! The hotel also had a pool that was really deep for me but really fun!

La Tour de Paris

We thought that a river cruise along the Seine would be a great thing to do in Paris. It turns out that there are many boat options available. We chose the Batobus. It is like the double-decker hop on – hop off tour bus – only it’s a boat. It was a great way to not only see but also visit most of the major attractions in Paris. The last boat of the day left from the Eiffel Tower just as the sun was setting. It had been a hot day and it was wonderful to be on the water and watch the scenery as the night lights came on.

There are close to a dozen bridges which cross the river in the tourist area of Paris and they are themselves attractions. One of our favouretes was the “Pont des Arts”. It is a pedestrian only bridge and it is a small art museum in itself displaying the works of one artist.

Of course the highlight of Paris is La Tour Eiffel. It is certainly one thing to see it from afar and something quite different to see it from its base. You have the option of walking up or of taking the elevator. Due to the limited space at the top, we were only able to go up as high as the second look-out (which was quite fine by Mike!). The view was spectacular nonetheless and was certainly one of the highlights of the trip.

Quelle Surprise!

Starr celebrated her 40th birthday this year in grand style – and when I say grand, I mean grand! Mike (with the help of Emma) planned the best birthday surprise ever. We were all standing in the Stockholm airport to catch a plane to Helsinki for a week-end of Orienteering when Mike and Emma announced that we were instead flying to Paris, France. Starr was shocked – Paris! Starr was also shocked because it seems that everyone else seemed to be in on the secret and she didn’t have a clue! Yes, she did cry.


We arrived in Paris mid-afternoon and, after an adventure trying to find our hotel, checked in to a wonderful place on the Rue de Rivoli right across from the Louvre. We had three nights and three days and we made the most of them. We walked through the Jardins de Tuileries to the Place de la Concorde, walked along the river Seine, went up the Tour Eiffel, and road the Batobus along the river Seine.

We saw Notre Dame Cathedral, the Opera House and the Grand Palais and walked along the Champs Elysees. We ate fresh, warm crossants for breakfast and crepes for lunch and dinner. Our only disappointment was the Louvre. We had saved it for our last day before heading to the airport. Turns out it is closed on Tuesdays! Really! We, and many, many others were very disappointed. Instead we went and visited the much smaller Musee d’Orsay – which, it turns out, had a fabulous collection of Impressionist paintings and sculptures including “La Petite Danseuse” by Degas – a favourite of Emma and Starr.

It was a wonderful birthday and a fabulous trip.

Jukola...next year

Posted by Mike...

One of my goals for the last 15 years was to compete in the so-called "Olympics of Orienteering". Race in the 5 Big Races of Orienteering: Tiomila, O-Ringen, World Orienteering Champs, World Rogaine Champs and Jukola. I've raced in Tiomila in 1993 and 2006. Took part in the O-Ringen in 1979, 1983, 1984, 1985, 1986 and 1997. Raced in the all of the World Orienteering Champs held in Scandinavia since the early 80's (1983/JWOC, 1989, 1997, 2004 and soon 2006) and raced in the World Rogaine Champs in 1998 and 2004. The final 'ring' in my "Olympics of Orienteering" is Jukola. Despite many chances to do it I never have ... but 2006 was going to be the year. I was to run the anchor leg for Umea OK and hopefully make up for my disaster in the Tiomila a few months ago. Unfortunately a nagging knee injury that I've had for the last two months has got to the point that rest was needed. I ran injured through the spring races, including the World Cup in Estonia, and if I wanted to run WOC in August I would need to rest. This was an easy decision to make as Jukola was also the same weekend as Starr's 40th birthday so the Wadd Squad took off to Paris for a weekend celebration (see future blog entries on that).

Anyway back to Jukola. For those that don't know Jukola is the largest orienteering relay in the World - and quite possibly is now the largest orienteering event in the World with over 13,000 participants. Check it out at www.jukola2006.net. There were two North American club teams at Jukola this year. The Greater Vancouver Orienteering Club became Canada's first club to enter a team (a coed team that finished in the middle of the 1300 team pack), but the Cambridge Sports Union (CSU) from the Boston area finished a very impressive 204th! CSU is the group that inspired the formation of the GHO Canada GHO training group and hopefully their excellent performance will inspire other clubs in North America to enter teams in Jukola.

Why?
Well because large relays such as Jukola provide the perfect 'team' or club goal for a fun social event that involves lots of club members. Of course if you are going to take part in such an event you will want to do as well as you can and the goal of doing as well as you can leads to the need for club training - hopefully lots of hard and fun training. This means that the club needs at least 7 fit people to do the race - and more like 10 when you factor in possible injuries, sicknesses, etc. It also means that this should inspire each team member to push harder to get a better result and that you are working together for a common goal - and not against each other as in a team trial or individual championship. When adventure racing was my main sport in 2001-2003 I trained very hard to avoid being the 'weak-link' on the team but also to make sure I made my AR team's top team. So with something like Jukola - if you are number 7 in the club then you are just as valuable as the top person in the club and if you want to be among those top 7 you better train hard to make it. It is the club's responsiblity to inspire the training, do the recruiting and build up the depth. I'd even go as far as to say that until North American orienteering clubs get serious about athletic development and big team races, then North America will not make major gains at the World level in orienteering. We need groups of athletes training and racing together throughout the year. Pushing each other and helping each other get better. Having a big race like Jukola as a goal only makes it easier and more importantly FUN. Heck if minor hockey clubs and ringette teams travel across the World to gain experience as a team - then why not orienteering clubs? They are successful in fundraising. So why can't we be?

Currently we place a lot of focus on the World Orienteering Champs. We choose 6 men and 6 women and they represent the country. What is the goal for the person ranked #19 or 20 in the country? They know at the start of the year they likely won't medal at the North American Champs or make the Canadian team. They certainly could set a goal to move up in the rankings but that takes a lot of work on your own. But if they were ranked #5 in their club and the club needed 7 people to form a relay team then that person has a goal and the club needs them. And who knows that person could someday make the Canadian team because of that extra inspiration and by getting that chance and training more.

For the last two years me and the GHO Canada GHO group have been trying to get everyone's schedules together and enter a team at Jukola. We wanted to be Canada's first club team. Well that one is now taken by GVOC and good on them for taking that step this year. This year we changed our plans and went to and won the US Relay Championships. Not exactly a Jukola-like atmosphere. So it has to be Jukola...next year.

The goal? Try to better the CSU performance and try to break the top 200? That won't be easy but regardless of the peformance training for and racing in major international relays will be my main orienteering goal after WOC this year. CSU's performance was awesome and it has inspired me to start fundraising and recruiting for the GHO Canada GHO team. Jukola..next year! That's for sure.

So, if you want to sponsor "Team GHO (your company here)" as we attempt to be the first North American club to crack the top 200 at the 2007 Jukola then email me today for a sponsorship package!

Swedish 101: Glass

Glass! Swedish for ice cream. Swedes love their ice cream. There are stores everywhere in downtown Uppsala and at this time of year there is always somebody eating some (even at 9am in the morning). We were convinced Swedes ate more ice cream per capita than any other country, however, a little non-scientific web search revealed the following.

Litres per capita ranking

1) New Zealand 26.3
2) USA 22.5
3) Canada 17.8
4) Australia 17.8
5) Switzerland 14.4
6) Sweden 14.2

Maybe the ice cream scene here is just a non-winter thing. New Zealand looks like a good choice for a future research sabbatical!

Djurgården

Up until yesteday the only thing we knew about Djurgården was that it was the name of Mats Sundin's Swedish Hockey Club. Yesterday in the late afternoon we visited Djurgården in Stockholm and now we know that Djurgården is a lot more than a hockey team. Djurgården is an island in Stockhom that includes several museums, a National Park and an amusement park (see below). There are several large Oak trees (like the one above) throughout the park and it only strengthens our view that Stockholm is the best capital city in the World. There are a couple of sailing clubs and marinas on the island and some phenomenal houses.
The main attraction for the WaddSquad was Gronalund - an amusement park. We checked out a couple of the rides and Emma will give an overview of that shortly.

After dinner we all participated in the final stage of the Stockholm City Cup Sprint series.
Results: Emma, Starr, Mike.

The photo below is a view of Gronalund with the downtown in the background from the top of the Ferriswheel (it was the only ride Mike went on).

Svensk Sommar

Well today we got to finally get a taste of Svensk Sommar or Swedish Summer. Bright sunshine, temperature in the high 20's, and a weekend with no orienteering. What? No orienteering. Well Mike has a serious injury and is hobbling around while walking so this is a great opportunity to see other parts of Sweden besides woods (more on that in another blog posting). So we packed up the car and raced off to the coast.

Wow! It was just like northern Ontario except replace Georgian Bay with the salt waters of the Baltic Sea. We just love the forests, lakes and open rock of the Canadian Shield in northern Ontario and today's visit to the coast made us a tad home sick.

We played a couple games of Yahtzee on the open rock and then went for quick swim. C-c-c-cold water but we got our hair wet and Mike did some water running (all 15 seconds of it before he went numb). A nice sea breeze kept the temperature of the air perfect but it was unfortunate to see that jet ski dudes are as annoying in Sweden as they are back home in Canada.

On the way home to Uppsala we enjoyed another Swedish past time - ICE CREAM. See a future blog post about that as well. Back in Uppsala we got together with Erik Kellner (Mike's former post Doc) for a BBQ. Killen vid Grillen! Some more ice cream and while we type this at 11:30pm it is almost dark. Another 10 days to mid-sommar and Svensk Sommar officially begins. If it is like today then bring it on!

Swedish 101: Gula Bil

This translates to "Yellow Car". Gula Bil is the equivalent to "Punch Buggy" back in Canada.

If you see a yellow car you yell out GULA BIL. No points for mini vans or trucks.

Uppsala "Hills"

Today's theme was "Hills". We use that term loosely as the Uppsala region is very flat. We visited an old 'castle' from 250 BC on a 'hill' south-east of Uppsala. It was a short 300m hike to the castle and while we were doing the hike Mike and Starr got a serious dose of deja-vu.

"Remember that hill with all those rocks that was supposed to be a castle that we walked to back in 1993?" Yup we did a hike to this pile of rocks on a hill again. No castle... just a pile of rocks. It wasn't impressive in 1993 and it sure wasn't 13 years later (we sound like such snobby tourists saying that). Oh well, it was a nice view (see below) and was a great location for lunch.

After a visit to the beach we visited Kung Bjorns Hojd. Another Viking burial hill (see above) on the edge of Uppsala. This is a really interesting place and a great place for a picnic. We visited the place with Mike Englinski who was running a sprint orienteering course. The entire area is mapped at 1:1,500. No that is not a typo (1500). We'll post another comment in the future about orienteering at this place but we have to rest the sore muscles with all the climbing we did today up those 'hill's - it had to be at least 30m today. ;-)

U-Ringen Final

Emma's post:
Tuesday I ran the last U-Ringin. It hade 8 controlls. I got lost going from 4 to 5. I came in 11th place (7th overall). Mommy and I walked all the way home and visetied 3 parks. I was very tierd after. Mommy saw 2 sheep by with a lady.

Uppsala Rocks!

Emma's post:
Right next to our house there are woods, fields, and trails with rocks EVERYWHERE! I love to play there! I bring a picnic and I jump and hide. Mommy and Daddy take pictures and sometimes take their books. Uppsala Rocks!

Stockholm

The Wadd Squad spent the late afternoon and evening in Stockholm - Sweden's Capital City. Stockholm is the most beautiful Capital City we have ever visited. Lots of water and islands, great architecture and lots of parks
/green space. We spent most of our time in Gamla Stan (see photo) which is the old city. We tried to avoid the tourist traps but we'll admit we visited a few touristy stores.

After a quick dinner in the Old town Mike and Emma took part in the Stockholm City Cup. The SCC is a series of three sprint orienteering races. Race#1 was in Gamla Stan and yesterday's race was in Langholmen. An island with an old jail. Results are here.