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Orienteering

Stress and Orienteering

Here is the summary of the previous season.

One of my fellow orienteers in JOK advanced the theory that the stress of work affects my results adversely. Case in point – after a week’s holiday, I got my best results of the season during the Scottish 6 Day. On the other hand, I generally perform badly in races in southern England, i.e. racing at the weekend when working at the week.

I think the truth is more that I’m better suited to the Scottish terrain (or my fellow southern England competitors are worse suited, when travelling up to Scotland.) I started orienteering in Scotland, and orienteered there for five years before moving to England. I’m not very fit and so am generally better on “technical” courses than physical ones. By physical here, I mean long distance and flatness allowing fast running, not physical as in the normal orienteering sense (hills, vegetation.) My best results of the season have been when I went to Scotland (Trossachs and Royal Deeside, running typically 6km races.) My worst results have been the longer, flatter, south England ones (World Cup areas in Surrey, 13km on the classic, pretty flat.)

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