1st in Venice

 

After 6 years I was able to win again the International Orienteering Meeting in Venice (M Elite). The "gold lion" arrived at the end of one of the longest races ever run in this lagoon city: 12,2 linear kms, 27 controls and 17.152 mt. with my route choices.

Podium: Overall results
1) TENANI Alessio G.S. Forestale 1h11'45
2) RENARD Damien OK Denseln 1h13'00
3) ROGENMOSER Chistian IF Proll 1h13'09

My race was almost perfect on technical side (map): I had only some hesitations (few seconds), for example leaving control n.1 and during controls 13-14 and 18-19. Also about physical side all was ok, even though I trained quite hard during the last week. But I didn't train during last 10 days of October (rest of the end of the o-season) and this gave me a sort of super compensation permitting me to run very well.

The race: after a fast start during the first controls (1-8), quite easy, we entered the most interesting part of the course, with controls of different length (9-22) with some route choices. I was not ready at the control 13 and so I missed something during the next control, because I slowed down my running speed.

Last part of the course presented some long route choices: here I tried to speed up, searching to avoid any mistakes maintaining my clearness.

Looking at my heartbeats (image), we can see that three lowerings were during my race: 2 in the shortest controls of the race (11-12-13 and 20-21), third when I was in "pedestrian traffic" during 24-25.

Meeting of Venice was filmed by SKY TV and we will see this report on SKY TV2 (Icarus).

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HOW TO RUN IN VENICE (for pictures and maps see Italian page)

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The international orienteering meeting of Venice have always fascinated me a lot, since I began practising orienteering (M12) with Polisportiva Masi. Throughout the years I ’ve looked for some physical and technical exercises to do during the weeks before the competition, in order to increase my result in this race. Thanks to these trainings I had good results also in other competitions with similar characteristics, such as sprint races (mainly in the tricky parts) or in PWT.

[Last year, for example, they were really useful for the World Cup in Lazio, in the sprint races of Subiaco (6th in the qualification) and Cervara (but unfortunately the good split times in the second part, which would have allowed me to finish in the firsts positions, were vanished by a big mistake in the wood at 1/3 of the race: 30th in final A). This year at PWT of Lagonegro- ]

These technical components, which I managed to improve, allowed me to limit the physic gap towards stronger orienteers at an international level in this kind of race, while there is still a big gap in the wood… :(

 

Analysis of the trainings:

The physical request during the MOV (elite) is very similar to the half marathon one : so there is nothing to invent to train this aspect: training at medium speed, lactate training and fart-lek to increase speed changes during the race.

On the other hand one of the peculiarity of the race are the frequent bridges: so, in the period before the race, some training are dedicated to "stairs repeating", reading an orienteering map during the recovery, trying not to slow down too much.

This in order to accustom me to the change of step due to the bridge and to train not to slow down too much while reading the map. A little route near my house is very suitable for this (image).

 

There are also specific dry technique’s trainings: I think the solution of some labyrinth (image) is useful to improve the immediate vision of all the possible route choices.

Then, to valuate which is the best one, the experience of a lot of races in Venice helped me to find a process which can be summarized this way (image, with letters indicated):

A)     How to arrive to the control: avoid course planner traps, looking how to arrive to the control.

B)     General choice: find the main passages during the track, often bridges or squares which divide the track in shorter parts.

C)    Micro-choice: route choice among the fundamental passages:  as I don’t run very fast, I prefer the shorter route choice, even if reading the map is more difficult.

Finally you have "just" to do it in the shortest time; if you have a good photographic memory is better because you can concentrate on the trajectory to do in order to avoid tourists…and  read the map less times (= less times you slow down) 

If you read all the article, I hope some of these suggestions will be useful in the next MOV!

Last note: I ran in 15 meetings (9 in junior categories, 6 in HE: results since 1991) and this is an advantage towards those strangers who come to Venice for the first time.

Summing up, in Venice, I scored four 1st places and five 4th places; will I ever be able to even the score?! :)