10th Ori Jovem

Hello!

First of all we want to say Merry Christmas!

Last three days (20 to 23 December) we went to a training Camp in Ovar, in the centre of Portugal, organized by the Portuguese Federation for children and young people. We arrived to the school, where we were going to stay, Saturday's evening. We came back home Tuesday after a training in the morning and lunch. It was an amazing training camp, in excellent maps, and with a great variety of trainings. The meetings at the night, that where almost classes were really great. We think it's very important to discuss route choices, types of trainning, ideas, etc...its a good way to learn. Trainnings:

Sunday morning

- "Relocalização"- 6,1km

It's a pair trainning, where you have different controls in your map that your collegue. There is map A and map B. You have to take your partner to a control (and he cant see the map) and when you get there he has to realize where he is and take you to a control that both have in the map.

- Memory - 4,8km

After the first 6,1km we had another pair training. Each one had to memorize 6 controls, while the other was counting how much time did you looked at the map, and then during the course, how many times did you need to look again to the map (if you needed to). Mariana and Isabel didn't complete all this training because it was very late and they had to go the restaurant for having lunch.

Sunday afternoon

-Scales - 4,5km

After having lunch we had an excellent training. It was the first time we did it, its called "Scales". You have a different scale for each length but you dont know what it is. In the meeting, we had to try to find out what scale was in each length (1:8200, 1:3500, ...) and what was the length that was 1:10 000. It was very interesting :)

In the end we made a very short formal course, with 1,3km and after the coach told us that we had to draw in a white paper what we remember about the map. It was very nice to do it.

Monday morning

-"Contours"

We had a map only with the contours, with a course of 6,1km and without compass. In the end the feeling was " i think that if i had the all map, i wouldnt make a better time" . When you have a map like this, only with contours, you only look to the important and you don't get distracted with small things.

-"Line training"

...you have a line drawn in the map and you have to stricly follow it and if you see any control that is exactly under the line, you have to punch it and memorize where it was. Of course there were some controls very close to the line but not exactly under it. It was a 2,5km course.

Monday afternoon

-"Simulation"

After having lunch, we had an indoor training. We call it "simulation". You have a map, of a place anywhere in the world, and we made two different exercices. With the first map we had to see if the control was in a high or down part. We had a card (do you remember the old punching system? something like that) and if it was high we had to punch it.In the second exercice we had another different map, but now we had to see if during the lenght (following the red line) you have to go high, or go down, or go high and then down, or go down and then high, or go down, high and down again, or high, down, high. You have 6 different ways, and you have to choose the right one and punch it. The first exercise had 50 controls and the second one 30 controls. We were running while we were making the exercises.

Tuesday morning.

Last day, the Relay day :D

As usual, the last day was the relay day. We started all at the same time, and we had a 4,6km course. Mariana arrived first, and then almost 2 minutes after arrived joana and 5 seconds behind Isabel. It was and excellent way to finish this training camp :)

We came back home, and we celebrate Christmas with our family =D

Mariana is at a trainning Camp organized by the Portuguese Federation for top atlhetes. Joana and Isabel decided not to go because they have a training camp that starts tomorrow, organized by their club, GD4C. We will all come back home on Tuesday :)

If we don't have the chance to update this in 2008..

HAPPY NEW YEAR :D

See you,
O-laranjitas ;)