Orienteering choking

After having read this New Yorker's article I got interested about choking.
Orienteering is a sport where every step that we make should be towards the next control. In high level races I have this tendency to alter my navigation routines ending in worse-than-expected performances. Understanding it, may help me avoiding it.

Choking in sport is considered to be a sub-optimal performance under stressful conditions (Lewis & Linder, 1997) and has been defined as ‘‘the occurrence of inferior performance despite striving and incentives for superior performance’’ (Baumeister & Showers, 1986, p. 361). Many examples may be found here. Further information here.

There are 2 theories for it:
- distraction theories (Carver & Scheier, 1981), which maintain that under stressful conditions, the athlete’s attentional capacity will be overloaded by task-irrelevant stimuli such as worry and self-doubt, resulting in performance decrements (I'm one of the victims...).

- self-focus theories (Baumeister, 1984), which include the conscious processing hypothesis (Masters, 1992), and are collectively termed ‘‘explicit monitoring’’(Beilock & Carr, 2001). They state that performance deteriorates as a consequence of the athlete reinvesting explicit technical information and consciously monitoring and/or controlling a skill that normally would be performed automatically.

I found it curious that:
- Jones et al. (2007)- found that those who excel under pressure are able to maintain a balanced sport/life perspective, despite being intensely committed to their sport;

- Fletcher et al. (2006)- established that a lack of mental toughness will encourage an athlete to perceive the situational demands as beyond their capability a process reflected within choking.

- mental toughness consists of several attributes, including an unshakeable belief, an ability to remain fully focused, and a capacity to switch sport focus on and off (Jones et al.,2002, 2007)

- ‘‘these people who have perspective and say... I don’t really care, [can] shrug off things really well. I think this is a characteristic of mental toughness... and I think it’s a big thing [missing] in choking’’.

- [the choke] is extremely difficult to deal with and hence, nine times out of ten, performance will stay bad and they will be annihilated... they won’t regain performance... however, I think there are some individual differences and mental toughness issues going on, when some people can regain their performance.

- (in the photo, the greatest all-the-time choke by Novotna's wimbledon final loss after a 4-1 40-30, described here).

Apart from choking, even if I've been only training once a day this season, today I did one of the best long intervals of my life at 6x1000+600+600. Good times without suffering is a great feeling. Can't wait for competing again after this training period.

Great Orienteering footage...

...about the I Orienteering Meeting of Gouveia. Credits by RTP (national TV) - uncheck "HD" if you have problems watching:

1º Meeting de Orientação de Gouveia from WEDDO DOIS on Vimeo.

Arraiolos International Meeting (WRE)

And so the most important portuguese orienteering week has ended by the best way. Gafanhori has provided all the present orienteerers with a great stage.
My performance there was conditioned by the open wound on my knee, made at the POM.

Middle distance, 7.2k (290m), 34'23 - I was happy once, after a disappoiting POM, I was able to do a regular race. The knee hurted in the 1st part but it was ok in the 2nd part where there wasn't vegetation.

Long distance, 18.3k (525m), mp - The greens of the 1st controls hurted me too much. After passing the river to the 3rd it got worse and I decided to just finish the race at a slower pace. By the 17th, my right buttock also started to hurt because of the compensated stride and I decided to go directly to the finish area. It was a great course and I was really sad for not having been able to do it properly. I hope that someday I'll be able to try this course again.

A different afternoon

As an athlete you've probably heard lots of empiric theories about performance.
This afternoon, sick of studying, I've spent the afternoon discussing this theme with a thriathlete friend at the Faculty's library. Note that we both don't have education in the area (so our opinions are limited). We're just curious about it and so I share some thoughts:

I've always heard that training in a fasted state would improve your lipolysis capabilities. It's an empiric idea among portuguese long distance runners. Actually, we've found here that:
- exercise-induced intramyocellular lipid breakdown was enhanced in type I fibers (P<0.05)
- increased the exercise intensity corresponding to the maximal rate of fat oxidation (+21%) more than did CHO (+6%) (P<0.05)
- prevented the development of exercise-induced drop in blood glucose concentration (P<0.05)

About supplements, we had 2 opposite opinions. By what I've seen, heard and read, I think that we don't need any:
- protein supplement - it's pure math. if an athlete needs 1.4-2 g/kg/day, this goal is easily reachable by 2 beefs (90gr of protein each) or 1cup of beans (177gr).. and we eat much more than that. About the timing, it isn't that odd to eat normal food (non-powder food, i mean) right after the training sessions.
- electrolyte supplements - well explained here

About heart rate training .
I'm trained by personal Rate of perceived exertion (RPE); he trains by heart rate (HR).
About HR, considering that:
- dehydration can increase heart rate by up to 7.5%;
- heat and humidity can increase heart rate by around 10 beats/min;
- altitude can increase heart rate by 10-20%, even with acclimatisation
- the HR varies along a training session and it's peak is delayed during intervals.
- the time between two consecutive beats can vary considerably in normal athletes.

... is it still as precise as claimed? I used to train by HR with my last coach and I felt limited once I like to vary the pace during a training session by my will.

About RPE (I don't have any scale, it's subjective)...
...it's applications in the antecipatory model may be geniously found here...

... it's accurate

... may prevent overtraining
... and the preferred associative vs. the dissociative model fits in (the "brain training" theories).

After all, I think that the human will to manipulate our million-year tuned engine had no significant results. Rather than manipulating it, we should focus on understanding it.

To my page/day statistics it was a lost afternoon; to me, it was an enjoyable afternoon.

Portugal O'Meeting 2011

Nice organization by GD4C. For me, it's an honor to have all the best athletes and friends in Portugal, enjoying these days.

DAY1, Long distance, 14.6k (665m), 1'13'37 - I've noticed that when I'm excited with a race I have this massive tendency to start running without looking at the map (I'm getting better at controling this feeling but I'm far from where I want to be).
This map was easy and it worked for a while, until the 4th where I did a huge mistake. I was progressively caught by T.Aires and by then I started focusing on my navigation (nothing changed, just the fact of having someone catching up made my navigation better - and this made me think about it at the end of the race).

DAY2, Middle distance, 6.5k (285m), 42'27 - One of the worst performances I can recall. If careless orienteering would work in some parts of the day before, it ended with a mess in this day. Furthermore I fell and hurted my knee badly.

DAY3, Middle distance, 6.1k (220m), 39'42 - I was conditioned by my knee. Hurted at the beginning but I was soon able to forget about it. The navigation was better but my running was conditioned.

DAY4, Long distance, 15.1k (340m), 1'20'32 - I really liked this race. Some controls were too easy, indeed. I was happy with my navigation (after 3 days, it was enough!) but, once more, I was also physically conditioned.



LESSONS:
- I'm feeling physically better than what I was expecting. The lack of athletic competitions lately doesn't give me an exact measure but I'll be able to check it in the next weeks.
- I did some top splits... so I have an idea of what a top performance is by recalling those moments. I have to focus more on the navigation and avoid this big mistakes.

...more to come, right this weekend in Arraiolos!

Warming up the engine

Nice organization there by Ori-estarreja. I felt that I went back in time to 2 seasons ago when I used to carelessly navigate. I did huge losses in the control areas due to a lack of anticipation.

Middle distance, 6.6k (150m), 37'57 - I thought that I would feel physically worse. I didn't loose time in the running part to the winner but did huge mistakes, summing a total of 5'30 (outch!). I may explain some mistakes in the final part by not having been able to focus because of some Achilles pain, but the mistakes in the beginning were pure distraction.

6-man night relay, 7.1k, 48'55 - It was a nice race. Good warm up, no Achilles pain. Once again, huge losses of time because of careless navigation. What more can I say? The trak speaks for itself! (however, my team won the race, thanks to the rest of the elements).
Next weekend, POM. Right now, I'm too far from the performances that I want. I'll do my best next weekend, more focused on the map.

Unlucky times...

After an unlucky January with 2 weeks off due to common flu (now I must have all the stickers in my collection), I started February with some pain near my Achilles. I just rolled this week and yesterday, when I got fine, I started a foot's infection for which I'll have to take antibiotics for the next week. The lesson is: don't be careless (as I was) about feet open lesions that can be an entry port to everything.

With all this events, I think that my coach suspects that I'm giving excuses not to train. =) For this, he has sent me some inspirational phrases from Prof. Moniz Pereira, (the old-school 90-year-old athletic's coach that was responsible for the portuguese old glories) that I share with you:
- Old are the guys that have their life full of years. I have my years full of life.
- In athletics, you can pass from 1st to 7th in 1second.
- Even when it rained a lot, I was always with my athletes at the track and never at the countertop stage.
- In my club, under any atmospheric condition, including earthquakes, everyday there is a training session.
- Give me better conditions and we'll obtain equal results.
- Living is training and training is almost winning.
- Luck requires a lot of work.

Thanks to Silva that has provided me a Alpha6 headlamp for the next season. It's an amazing headlamp that values its cost: light, easily portable and same power as much more expensive headlamps.


Just to end, Contador was exonerated. With this precedent, will it ever be possible to condemn any athlete? more at Here

I OMG - Results, pictures and "Follow Tero"

This weekend, there was the National event organized by my club. Here in Portugal the clubs can take their own organizations pretty seriously, no athlete from the club participates in the race and everyone stays fully focused on pleasing the guests.

You're able to find photos at:
Gonçalo Cruz here
Gildo Silva here

... Jan Kobach's report of Saturday's event here
... and the results here (Splitsbrowser in the orienteering symbol).

With Thierry's permission, we've captured some movies (without much resolution).. You are able to follow them with the maps.




The portuguese Federation is going through a tough process. I had to go to this weekend's assembly as a representant of the Elite male class (it's usually represented by the ranking winner). I just talked with the athletes, gathered the info and voted according to the will of the majority of the athletes. It was a pretty boring session with laws that are too complex for me to understand and too much lack of respect from many sides. I really don't care about all this bureaucracy; I'm just an athlete, give me a map and I'm happy! =)

Last weekend's sickness spoiled me a week of training. January stats are: 2 weeks training, 2 weeks sick - not good. I'm now back to business, let's roll...

1st O'race of the season - Ultra-long

My first race of the season was an ultra-long distance in Alentejo (which, by international standards, was a long distance).

Long distance, 19.900m (440m), 1h43m04s - I was afraid of blowing up so I started too slow and loosing (too much!) time in the initial controls.
Major mistakes:
4th - the best option was in front by the small path. I saw the greens and didn't checked the small path.-1m30
15th - I was careless when I left the small path. Didn't look enough time to the map. -2m40
22nd - I skirted the hill by the wrong side and attacked the wrong rock. Lack of confidence. -1m00

When I realised that the course was ending and that I was still feeling well I pushed harder with good splits in the second half of the course. There was a bad management of effort. Only now I know that I'm able to push harder in these distances. Physically, I thought that I was worse (this season there won't be twice-a-day trainings). Technically, I navigated well compared with what I was expecting, once I haven't trained regularly with a map since June2010.

Before I went to Wien, I left a fat coach in Portugal and when I returned, I found a thin coach that runs as much as I'm running. Now he's also my training partner and we split the effort of the intervals, which is nice. The bad part, is the psychological pressure of the "old fellow" that is always trying to pass me. (Graph of yesterday's long intervals at the track).


About the experience in Austria, in the 2nd largest hospital in the world, it was great! Medically, we learned a lot and had nice evaluations. About friends, we did lots of good friends and met really nice people. Orienteeringly, I learned new methods of training and developed my running in the forest. About the social differences, it's something like the video below (switch italians by portuguese):


Now I'm making an Internal medicine rotation. For the 1st time in my life, I'm being given my own patients (supervised in the end of the morning). It can be stressful at times but I'm loving it! The bad part are the late lunchs, only at 15h, that are responsible for my morning hypoglicemias (those guys don't eat anything!).

My weeks have been evaluated in km's and pages. We'll see...

The longest cold of my life

After a legendary New Year in the heart of the Tirol with amazing friends (thanks to Martin&Uschi, the organizers) and an incredible athmosphere I got a classic cold with chills, low fevers and anergy.

Monday I wanted to fight against it with a session at the gym (stupid!) and got worse in the next days. I've been spending the mornings in the O.R. with some sacrifice and the afternoons at bed drinking hot tea. Friday I went for a run with David (who also had the same) and also got worst after. So now, I've been waiting for my body to recover for a week and I hope that it decides to get better quickly!. It seems that everybody is sick in Vienna with lots of coughs and red noses on the streets and hospital. In Portugal, the O'season has started this weekend and I can't wait to joint it.



In the meanwhile, the "I Meeting de Orientação de Gouveia" is going above expectations. Thierry Gueorgiou, Olav Lundanes, Philippe Adamski, Frederic Tranchard, Vincent Coupat, Gernot Kerschbaumer and Ionut Zinca are some of the stars that already made their entries in this event.

This blog has reached the mark of 50.000 visitors. This project started as a way of forcing myself to analyze my performances and as a diary of my ups and downs across these years. It seems that got some more people interested on it (beside me!) and I'm glad about it. Thank you all! =)