Photos from Sabie

A picture of the dam and event center at Klipkraal:
A photo from the Pope's accommodation:
The Juniors in action: Peter Hemer managed to get shots of Stephanie, Salome, Zoe, Sarah, Jess H and Bradley.







The Relay briefing:

SA Champs

Klipkraal near Sabie was the venue for the 2009 South African Orienteering Championships. Most of the junior categories were hotly contested. It was brilliant to have so many juniors at one event!

Middle Distance Results:

W21E - Jess L and Salome ran the elite women's course. Salome had a good run to take the bronze medal.

W20 - Jess H, Sarah, Steph and Zoe ran in this category. Steph had a superb run to take the gold medal with Zoe coming second.

W12 - Christie, Heather and Micaela tackled the 1.4km course. Christie continued the Courtnages success by taking gold.

M21E - Brad ran the elite course and came an impressive 9th place out of 19.

M20 - Nicholas de Klerk, Michael Crone, JP and Ropafadzo did well on the M20 course. Ropa had an smooth run to take his maiden SA champs title.

M12 - Josh de Klerk blitzed round his course in 10 minutes.

Classic Distance Results:

The juniors certainly kept things interesting with only one junior managing to win both a middle and classic title.

W20 - All 6 girls were competing on the 6.2km course. Salome had another solid run to take gold, Steph took silver with Sarah finishing 3rd.

W12 - Heather Wimberly managed to out do her competitors to take gold.

M21E - Brad tackled the 11km course and had a great run. Way to go Brad!

M20 - Michael took gold with JP not far behind on the M20 course.

M12 - Josh was the champ on his course.

Relay:

As always the inter-club relay was lots of fun. Brad ran the last leg for the winning Raco team and Michael ran the first leg for the Witsoc team which took Silver. The other juniors showed off their skills in the nice, runnable forest and did their teams proud. Below is a pic of the winning Raco team being sprayed with sponsored aquelle water:
The area was beautiful, the food on sale at the event centre was great and the calenders and mugs we got made it even more memorable. Thanks to Raco for a well organized event.

After the Classic races on Friday Dave Peel, former British coach, had a session with the juniors who went to Italy. We discussed our experiences at JWOC and how we can improve at future JWOCs. It was interesting to hear his ideas.

Sarah's route and analysis

I had bad runs at the two events preceding the Mountain Marathon so I picked up my map without a lot of confidence.

I took #1 easy and made sure I concentrated until I punched it. Was a bit confused going into the circle by all the rocks but saw the flag as I approached the boulder cluster.

#2 was easy. Could almost see the flag from #1.

#3 involved crossing the river then heading up the small hill. First real intro to the thorns. Easy feature to spot once you got close.

#4: Ouch! No choice but to go through the wall of thorns. Got quite distracted by the thorns so lost focus. I stopped short and was uncertain in the circle.

#5: A big route choice leg. My plan was good but I didn't execute it well. First objective was to get down the hill as quickly as possible ie avoiding the thorns. Next I had to get across the river. Then I ran along the path parallel to the river, turned right at the junction. The plan was to leave the path and head up the hill after the big kink in the path. I lost concentration while trying to figure out a route to #6 and I stopped short. Felt like I'd been running for ages and wondered if I could trust the 'old' map. Headed up the hill with not a lot of confidence. Got to the top eventually and stood around for a bit before realizing it was dead simple.

For #6 I tried to contour and avoid green. Paths were helpful. Wasn't 100% sure which thickets were marked.

#7: Ran on a bearing. Got to the flat bit and headed to where I thought the control would be. Wasn't there, but I spotted the flag to the right.

#8: Path took me right in.

#9: Bit of a wobble. Ran round the east of the ruins planning to run along the out of bounds area but plan changed when I saw the thorns. Stayed on the path for as long as I could before heading in. Bare rock was further down the hill than I expected.

#10: Bit uncertain as the long grass hid the wall, but hit it okay.

#11, 12: Relatively straight forward and my legs were feeling surprisingly decent.

Was relieved that I had an enjoyable run. Had lots of hesitations though. I'm still stopping short a lot due to loss of concentration and then lack of confidence.

Ian ran the same course in about one hour and 10 minutes I think. Almost 20 minutes faster than me! Crazy. I've got a lot to work on. Doing a leg by leg analysis definitely helps identify where I can improve.

Mountain Martathon

The juniors had some good performances at Klipriviersberg. The old map, thorns and extra climb made the courses challenging.

Sarah won W20 by just over a minute with Salome coming second. Micheal Crone won the M20 category. Christie Courtnage did well on the W12 course and Josh de Klerk whizzed round his course. Other juniors who tackled the mountains were Jess H and Zoe on W20, Micheala De Vallier on course 4 and Olivia Bamford on the short novice course. Below is a pic of Mike looking finished:

Steph's winning Doornpoort route

Below is Steph's route from a few weeks ago:

Doornpoort

The last normal colour coded race of the season was a tough one. The planners put on some good courses, but a few misplaced controls and the maze of ruins made it challenging. Stephanie handled the conditions brilliantly and was the first lady on the blue course. Well done Steph! Sarah and Salome also tackled the blue course but neither of them were very successful. Mike had a reasonable run on blue finishing in the middle of the field.

Jess H and Zoe ran the green course. Jess H was the first lady home.

Nicholas, who has just returned from WOC , won the brown course. He was wearing his cool new GPS so we can see exactly where he went. Check out his route below and read what he thought of his run here.
Next up is the Mountain Marathon and in 3 weeks time it's SA champs!