Warm Weather Training - Israeli-Style-Scottish Elite Development Squad

Warm Weather Training - Israeli-Style

While the rest of SEDS are enjoying the sand dunes of Portugal, or plugging away with winter training back home, Kirsten Strain has spent the last six weeks studying in Jerusalem. She reports back from a weekend away with her local o club:

Whilst on a short research placement in Jerusalem I was excited to hear that a weekend of orienteering was on offer in the desert in the south of Israel, by the Egyptian border. Through a contact I made with someone in Jerusalem’s nearest club, Modi’in OC, it was arranged that I would go on their club bus to the event.

When I met the bus at 7am on Friday morning there were around 30 people there: a few children, several teenagers and adults of all ages. We left Modi’in and drove south, leaving green and grass behind as we passed Beer Sheva and continued right down to within a few kilometres of Egypt. The event was essentially a local event, with only four courses and pin punching, although people had travelled to it from all over the country. Entering medium as women’s open I prepared for my first 6 km in desert terrain. The start faced out towards a large valley but fairly step hills continued down both sides. I soon discovered that round the hill was a faster route choice than up and over – not because of the steep up but because descending on the mixture of fixed and loose rock was impossible at anything approaching racing speed. Trying to hold off a couple of M18s distracted me enough to take a totally wrong line during the second half of the course but having them still in sight helped me to keep racing to the end.

Most competitors were staying in the race accommodation in the guest dorms of a small Jewish community village. After stopping off at a large sand dune for club challenges, games and fun, we arrived at the accommodation in time to join in an informal handicap relay around the grounds. Verging on sprint standard mapping and with course lengths of around 1.4 km it was fast and furious. Unfortunately I got confused by vegetation at number one so I failed in my ‘first leg destroyer’ reputation but the rest of my team pulled it back and were first to finish, only to be declared non-competitive due to breaking the handicap rules.
Evening entertainment included a drive to a beautiful hilly region just 2km from Egypt to watch sunset and then back for a Jewish Sabbath dinner, complete with the breaking of the bread ceremony and large quantities and varieties of food going up and down the tables. After that astronomy and Hebrew singing were organised by the hosts though I opted to spend the time simply chatting to other orienteers.

Assembly for the second day of competition was also at the accommodation, so though starts were early to avoid the heat of the day it was a relatively relaxed morning. The underfoot conditions were similar to the previous day with a mixture of hard sand, loose rock and fixed rock, but the lack of large hills made the navigation much more technical with smaller features to be found within vague contour shapes. Again my biggest mistake came just after trying to shake off a couple of men, when I then overshot a boulder on a vague spur, but the loss of time drove me to dig deeper for the remaining kilometre. A total time of 41 minutes for 6.2 km made it one of my fastest orienteering races, though that speed pales in comparison to 44 minutes for 9.2 km achieved by Alexe Mazchenco on the men’s open.

Racing over, there was time for a few lengths of the on-site swimming pool, a cup of freshly-squeezed orange juice and a ‘lamna bread’ from the Bedouin version of Wilfs. The prizegiving took place almost entirely in Hebrew except to welcome the few foreign visitors and when necessary for the prizewinners. Having come second on day 1 and first on day 2, giving a result of first place on the combined times, I was given medals, a trophy, a couple of books and a punnet of cherry tomatoes. More than that though, I was able to take from the weekend an incredible experience of orienteering in terrain like nowhere else I’ve been and challenging their country’s top runners, whilst feeling more at home in their company than at any other point in my time in Israel.”

Photo of author Posted on 17th Feb 10
by Murray Strain - SEDS News Editor

Filed under: Elite Squad

Scottish Elite Development Squad

Warm Weather Training - Israeli-Style

Other recent items in the same category